New Person on the Way

New Person is Here (Final Entry)

2010-06-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

[June 3, 2010]

That night Carey left the light on in the bathroom again. I hate it when she does that. I’m not that deep of a sleeper and quite sensitive to light. So when I woke up at 3:17 in the morning to see the stupid bathroom light on again, I was irritated. When I realized Carey was awake too, I spoke up.

“Why is the light on in the bathroom?” I groused. She looked kind of spaced out lying on her side staring at the light in the bathroom. “Are you alright?”

“Earlier my stomach hurt and woke me up and I think my water broke.” Here we go. Even if that was what happened, we learned in just about every birthing class and birthing book and video on birthing that only 20% of labors start with the water breaking. It’s not like it is in the movies or TV. I’m so sure.

“I’m going back to sleep-"

“Ugh! You have horrible breath! Go brush your teeth or something.” AND she’s back.
I ignored her request and turned over to go back to sleep. I gave up on having that obnoxious light turned off. She on the other hand got out of bed and went to the bathroom.

“I stopped peeing,” she shouted from the toilet “but liquid is still coming out. Should I call the doctor?”

“No…” I almost always say no when she asks this question and inevitably she always calls. After hanging up she gave me the scoop.

“The nurse practitioner said I should go back to sleep until 8am. Then call back and make an appointment.” Finally some sense. I thought I was going to be able to go back to sleep. But then Carey had a tiny contraction. “Oh. This is different. It’s lower.” She started rubbing the underside of her belly, an area she hadn’t seen in months. Fine. Now I’m awake.

“Well let’s just monitor them. If you have more than five in an hour-”

“Ow! I’m having another one.” Carey phoned back the on-call nurse.

“She said we should come in just to check on me. I’m gonna call the doula.” After a few minutes she reported “The doula says to go ahead and go in. We’ll probably just go in and they’ll give me steroids and I’ll come home. But there is a chance that I’m going in to labor.” 34 weeks and 3 days. It was actually further along than we initially thought possible considering her bicornuate uterus. But we weren’t convinced this was the time. Carey, however, had one of two bags already packed for the hospital. She had also filled out our birth plan form, according to our previous discussions, which we were going to go over with our doula the following Sunday. It had a bunch of areas highlighted because we weren’t sure what they meant. I printed it out anyway along with the Google document of the list of things to bring to the hospital. While doing this Carey called her mom and dad in Connecticut letting them know they might want to think about buying a plane ticket. We kept going back and forth about only taking one bag since we knew we were most likely coming back. We threw a load of baby clothes in the laundry so they’d be clean of brand new chemicals just in case. We grabbed our crap (including a brand new unattached car seat) and drove four blocks to Swedish Hospital. Fortunately we had kept a folder with all the papers, pamphlets, and forms concerning birthing at Swedish. We couldn’t remember where to park, though. The folder was behind me in the car and Carey couldn’t reach it. In a huff I stopped the car, got out of my seat, opened the back door and grabbed the stupid folder and threw it on Carey’s lap. I’m a little bitch at 5 in the morning. It’s old news. Get over it… She found the paper with directions/instructions for after hours parking and we proceeded. We parked and then deliberated again about whether we should bring the second bag in with us. It had an iHome so we could play music with our iPods and a small video camera. Junk like that. We erred on the side of bringing it. Onward to the birthing center triage!

We signed in and got our special room. In a room nearby a woman was wailing. It sounded like something out of a National Geographic video depicting a more primitive culture when they morn. Long painful groans that were really unpleasant to hear. While giving the intake with the receptionist, Carey quipped, “That doesn’t sound fun. Don’t worry. I’m not that far along!” They put Carey in a robe in order to do some exams all the while she continued to leak. They tested it and sure enough, Carey’s water had totally broken. Dr. Young N Handsome did a speculum check which just about popped Carey’s head off. After he left the room she was upset for not thinking to bring her make-up kit and hairdryer. She began trying to schedule a time when I could go home and pick those things up. Also, she felt she was a little jungley down there. I tried to persuade her that she didn’t need to worry about it. But in Carey’s natural fashion, first she’s embarrassed and then she embarrasses others. The next few nurses and doctors she saw she apologized for her supposedly unkempt nether regions. The range of responses included “I’ve seen all types, honey,” to “…”. But no one was going to see down there for awhile anyway because they gave her these King Kong-sized pads to compliment the hospital grade planet-sized underwear they had her wear. Lots of leaking occurs during this event, we discovered. From the speculum check Dr. Handsome couldn’t help but notice that Judah had already dropped down and Carey was already two centimeters dilated. Dr. Handsome explained the predicament we were in. In the olden days they used to induce labor at 34 weeks no problem, he explained. But nowadays they’ve discovered that it’s better to wait because this is the time when the lungs are still finalizing development. On the other hand, if the water was broken and he was on his way out, they won’t stop the labor by artificial means. Now there was concern as to why Carey’s water broke 5 ½ weeks early. One of the guesses was that it could be some sort of an infection had made the water break in order to not have Judah swimming around in the muck or whatever. So what to do, what to do… The solution – bed rest at the hospital until he arrives. So they put us in a room they didn’t have a name for. It wasn’t a labor room or a pre-labor room (we asked) because they didn’t officially use that as a title. It was more for bed rest only. We quickly learned that it was more like a storage room without any supplies. Finally our on-call physician (Dr. Good-looking India Doogie Howser) from the Obsetrix Pediatrix group came for a visit. He confirmed what Dr. Handsome (also in the room) thought was the best plan of action and that was to do an amniocentesis. This is a horrible procedure where they force a harpoon-sized needle into Carey’s stomach and draw amnio fluid out of the sack to determine if Judah’s lungs were up to snuff and if there was in fact an infection. Oh, and we were told the baby might not come for days. Days! Possibly not until Monday. So Carey was supposed to lie in that stupid room as still as possible maybe for four days? That's gonna happen.

It was 7:30 in the am when they moved us to the supply closet, er, I mean storage room, I mean…hospital room? Enough time had passed since we arrived (at 5am) that we decided breakfast would be a good idea. Carey phoned up room service. I nibbled on her breakfast when no one was looking. Carey’s main course was a giant chocolate protein shake. In between bites Carey called and texted some peeps. I put on some tunes on the iHome. Things were mostly tranquil so far. Carey even suggested I go home and get some real food for breakfast (and don't forget the make-up and hair dryer). But settling Carey in the storage room consisted of a very frustrated nurse trying to get the fetal monitor Doppler to locate Judah’s heart beat. A second monitor was also added to track Carey’s contractions on one of those seismograph machines where the lines make those jaggedy mountain range scrawls and then spike when she’s actually going through the contraction. A number rating shows the intensity. Low 20’s is normal for minimal contraction hurting and 100 is blackout pain. Tracking that wasn’t an issue. The problem was they couldn’t locate Judah’s heartbeat. The nurse spent FOR-EV-ER trying to find that beat. She even blamed the equipment and got a new Doppler plug-in. The seismograph did show that he was moving around a lot, a good sign. The other issue was that these monitors were really constrictive. We’d been warned by doulas, and even the birthing classes Swedish taught us, that the monitors are, yes in fact meant to make sure the baby is okay, but also to keep a paper trail if anything goes bad. To protect the hospital. And here’s the other thing – there are other kinds of Doppler/readers that are mobile but the nurses don’t like them because it requires more work on their part . Carey and I were on our guard about this situation. The nurse got so frustrated at one point she started talking about getting an internal monitor. That we seriously did not want. Especially this early in the game. That would mean that if Carey were to go in to labor she would have to stay put, lay on her back, and barely move so that the tiny braided wires attached to Judah’s skull up inside her hoo-hoo would not come undone. Carey would have to suffer through contractions without being able to move to make sure that monitor stayed put. That’s where I stepped in and asked the nurse if Carey would be able to get in the bath if that was in her because the bath will be a priority once she actually goes into labor. The nurse was unsure and faltered. We started emailing, texting, and calling our doula who was being paid to advocate for us in this kind of situation. Thankfully, we had enough knowledge to dodge that bullet. Meanwhile Dr. Good-looking India Doogie Howser did a quick mini-ultrasound to find an area where he could needle Carey to pull out some amniotic fluid. No luck. There was none left. That idea flew out the window. Next plan: give Carey some antibiotics intravenously just in case there was an infection after all.

The nurse assigned to us began the process of sticking a needle into one of Carey’s veins. Carey told her it was going to be hard and that she should probably start with a butterfly needle. The nurse smugly dismissed this advice. She poked a bunch of times in one of Carey’s arms to no avail. She switched arms and numbed the area first this time and dug around some more. Nothin’. She actually gave up and had another nurse come in to do the job. This new nurse on the scene Carey would later refer to as Nurse Stupid-Bitch. That was maybe a bit unfair, but you get the idea of how Carey felt about her. Now while all of this stab, stab, stabbity stabbing was going on, Carey’s contractions were increasing. They were coming on about every seven to eleven minutes with varying degrees of intensity. And when I say intensity, I mean Carey goes bat shit crazy with pain. Contractions had lost their novelty about two hours previous. In our eyes they ceased having any sort of curios nature about them. They sucked. Sucked BAD. But Nurse S-B would just keep reminding Carey that it was a long haul and how she should conserve her energy blah, blah, blah.

From our birthing classes, we were instructed, in a gentle manner, about the three stages of labor. (For the full effect, whisper-talk, sing-song these next few sentences) “The first stage consist of 30-45 second contractions and only a few occur in an hour. The second stage contractions can last up to 90 seconds and they begin to grow closer together allowing less time for recovery. Finally, the mother uses the contractions in the final stage to push out baby.” Huh. Just like that. Nice. One of Carey’s first exclamations after surviving a rip-your-face-off-painful contraction was, “They lied! They lied in those classes!” At one point she actually had a ten freakin’ minute contraction. I know, because I was watching the clock. 8:55 to 9:05. “It’s not going away! Owwww!” I tried to help Carey through the pain. I breathed with her slowly using the “Inhale. (sucking sounds)…, exhale (blowing sounds)…” and that helped a few times. I rubbed her back, and massaged her shoulders and stood upright when she wanted to lean her head into something and push. And they still didn’t move us to the labor room. Nurse S-B was still trying to effectively find a vein (in Carey’s hand now) to get some antibiotics in there (just on the off chance there was an infection, may I remind you), but she kept getting interrupted because Carey was actually already in labor. During one of the meaner contractions, Nurse S-B thought it best to just have a conversation with Carey. It started out sounding like encouragement, “You’re doing great, honey. Yeah, just work through that pain.” Carey either ignored our loudly drowned out this truly unhelpful talk. Nurse S-B’s tactics weren’t working to her liking so she decided to blame us for Carey not handling her contractions appropriately. It sort of sounded like an accusation when she said “Didn’t you guys take any of our birthing classes?” That’s when Carey yelled at her “I NEED YOU TO STOP TALKING NOW.” That shut her up. Momentarily, at least.

We began to hate being in that storage room. It didn’t have any of the things that a typical hospital room should have. Things we needed. One of Carey’s freak outs occurred while she was in the bathroom. As soon as she was done she tried to get out of there in order to beat the contraction to the bed. But she couldn’t get her mondo panties up in time and the diaper-pad fell into the toilet. She just threw it away and bent over and walked like Igor out of the bathroom. After the contraction she yelled for something to replace the pad. I looked all over that stupid room and couldn’t find anything. She wanted something NOW! So I grabbed a wad of santi-wraps, those thinner than paper toilet seat guards, and shoved a wad in her underwear. This was only humorous for about two seconds. Nurse S-B was still trying to put a needle in Carey when the barfing started. Guess what? There was no bucket in that damn room to catch the puke! Carey didn’t really give a damn at this point and just yakked all over the floor next to the bed. Gallons of it! Mostly the chocolate protein shake from breakfast, but even more than that. There was stuff mixed in there from food she had consumed back in 1992. Apparently the nurse couldn’t find anything in there either so she just threw the blanket from the bed on the floor to sop up the mess. (I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t she use the bed sheet? Wouldn’t that have been a more logical choice for sopping up fresh vomit? By this point we’d actually already used up the bed sheet because those santi-wraps were irritating Carey during contractions [imagine that?] so she decided to ditch the whole undergarment business entirely and go straight for the bed sheets.) Round two of the heaves came on and the good nurse wanted to try another method. She instructed me to offer Carey one of those kidney-shaped hospital drool catchers to collect the torrential down pour of puke. Linda Blair, I mean Carey, batted the tiny thing away and finished soaking the blanket all the way through. At one point between rounds of hurling, the nurse was trying to clean it all up and Carey hacked again and sort of got a little on the nurse (not to mention my shoe) and that seemed to make Carey happy for a fleeting moment. Another common occurrence we learned about labor, in addition to the ralphing, was that it’s typical during contractions for the preggers to get burning up, sweating hot. But then just as quickly cool to freezing. My job then was to help regulate Carey’s temperature. I would fan her during the episode and blanket her afterwards. She’d rip off her robe during and beg for it after. Now if you know Carey in real life, then you’ve probably experienced how difficult it is for her to sit still. This translated in this situation to rocking in place, stomping around, leaning up against the bed, and getting away from whichever nurse was still trying to put that IV in her and/or keep her fetal monitor attached. It was like these nurses had been educated under the instruction of the Keystone Kops. Finally, they decided maybe, yes, we should think about moving Carey over to the labor/birthing room. This bright idea was probably prompted by Carey screaming through a contraction, “JESUS H CHRIST! THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS ROOM!” At that point we had pretty much gone through every sheet, blanket, and robe available in the supply-less storage room they had us in. We’d used up everything to sop up any and every liquid coming out of all of Carey’s orifices (well, just about). Funny thing is, right after Carey’s outburst, Nurse S-B quickly came in and argued the point, “Well, that’s not true. There are too supplies in here.” I paused from Carey’s exorcism and thought, “Really? You are a trained birthing nurse specialist or whatever, right? This is most likely not your first dealing with a woman in labor, I’m guessing. And you think it’s a good idea to disagree, to argue with a woman in the throes of crazy-ass contractions about whether or not there are supplies in the room? The same room where all you could come up with to catch the gushing river of vomit was a dish best suited for brushing teeth in bed? Really?” Maybe Carey’s name for this nurse did apply…

Finally got a hold of the Doula on the phone. She said she would be there in thirty minutes. The time we moved into the labor/birthing room was 10ish in the am. First thing Carey did was order up a bath. All the videos and books and classes said the bath was awesome in helping with the horror of labor. Because they had finally acknowledged that yes, maybe Carey was in labor someone had the bright idea of checking the diameter of her cervix. It was at five centimeters. Plenty of time to get to ten. Nurse S-B followed us in with a birthing ball with a towel on it (a towel? From where?) for Carey to sit on. When an onslaught of contractions came on, Nurse S-B kept trying to get Carey to sit on the ball. I really felt like this nurse just wanted to keep Carey quiet. Like Carey was a real bother. She didn’t seem to have that, “How can I help you with the pain of being totally destroyed on the inside?” It was more like “Sit on the ball and maybe that will finally shut your damn mouth up!” Moments later she showed up with an electric fan, which was an idea that had been abandoned about fifty years previous. A fan would have made Carey’s head explode. That noise and the constant air movement on her skin. No this is when Carey would, at the height of a freak-out, rip off all her clothes and rock, entirely naked, bent over the bed or on all fours on top of the bed while madly sweating and then go back to freezing. I suggested we keep the fan in the room and if we really need it, at least it will be close by. I continued to alternate fanning Carey with the Hospital Menu to rubbing her lower back to holding her bottle while she tried to keep hydrated. But it turned out that was just more fodder for regurgitating. She spewed a watery substance all over the bed and floor. Nurse S-B resumed trying to get an IV in to Carey’s arm. Yup. They were still on getting that needle in. Another contraction attacked when Nurse S-B’s cell phone went off. I kid you not. And she had it on a lanyard around her neck, dangling right in front of Carey’s face. Naturally it was a super annoying ringtone. Carey flipped. “OH COME ON! ARE YOU SERIOUS? YOU’VE GOT TO GET THAT OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW! GET THAT OUT OF MY FACE.” Nurse S-B, living up to her name, couldn’t wait to answer the phone until she was outside the room and began talking as she left. “Yeah, I’m in one of the labor rooms right now…”

The bath was taking forever. It had been running for what felt like infinity times ten. A nurse checked on it and came back to report, “I’m running the jets now. After a few minutes we’ll drain it and fill it up again so it’ll all be ready for you.” What the what? Did someone just finish in here before us? Swedish Hospital was totally not living up to its reputation. So that bath had to be pre-prepared before use? Stupid.

The contractions turned even uglier and Carey alternated bewteen volcanic and trance-like. Eyes always closed. Monosyllabic communication. Primordial moaning. I had already overused all my breathing techniques. I was starting to feel useless. The room grew tight and suffocating. Where was the damn doula? It had been over thirty minutes by that point. The doula was more like a don’t-la! Or Do-less! I began to feel like I was coming apart at the seams. I was enduring perhaps one of the longest times stretches of my life. Finally at quarter to eleven our Doula arrived. She came in and kissed Carey on the sweaty brow. Talked to her explaining how the pain was a means to an end and other calming talk. I stepped back to let her do her magic. Or do-la her magic, I should say! (Sorry. I’ll stop with the doula puns now.) At this point, I realized that I was at any second going to lose my shit. During a quick second between contractions, our Doula asked me if I had eaten breakfast. Not really, was my answer. She told me I could go out in to the hall and eat something. That helped. I stood outside and ate a banana, some fruit leathers, paced and texted friends and family. I felt slightly better after that so I rejoined the show. I resumed my position in the corner while the doula helped Carey work through the pain. I occasionally fanned her, but I feared there was no way I was going to be able to keep it together any longer. Any second I was going to burst into bawling. I was fighting to keep it down by drinking from Carey’s water bottle every time I thought I was going to burst into weeping. Tears kept blurring my vision. I didn’t have an explanation. I didn’t feel sad or happy or any regular emotion involved with crying. I was just uniquely overwhelmed. I kept thinking, “I’m gonna lose my shit right this instant.” I knew that was a bad idea. I knew that if I started crying out loud like a wimpy wiener that I’d be asked to leave. “Get him out of here, now!” they’d say. “He’s only making things worse!” Carey looked at me a few times between the spells of madness and I was able to fake some assurance, but then I had to quickly turn away and drink some water stuffing my share of crying. After an excruciating contraction, Carey was sure the baby was ready to come out. It took some convincing, but Carey finally coaxed a nurse in to checking her cervix again. The nurse took a peak and announced, “The cervix is complete.” Which didn’t register for me. But then I got it. Carey’s cervix was totally dilated to 10 centimeters and Mr. Baby was ready to come out. It was happening. RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW! Carey communicated that she needed to push and she needed to go to the bathroom. The nurses and our doula, almost in unison, shouted at her not to push. They needed to get the doctors there because it was time. Carey kept saying she had to push, she had to go to the bathroom. They found her request suspicious. They were afraid she was going to try and push the baby out into the toilet or that would happen if she tried to go numero two. She convinced them it was just pee so they let her go. I blinked and there were twelve people in the room. Nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, interns, Neonatal Intensive Care people. After Carey's bathroom break, for some reason her latest contraction took place on the bed. This was good for the doctors. This is how they like to be – in the baseball catchers position with preggers on their back, legs up, pushing the baby out into the doc’s hands. One woman put on a clear plastic face apparatus that looked like a motorcycle wind shield attached to a mouth air filter. I guess she was expecting to get sprayed or something. After counting the heads, all I thought was, “Eleven people in here are going to see me lose my shit and humiliate myself like the pathetic weakling that I am.”(followed by drinking some more water). Okay. Now came the time for the pushing. We had officially entered stage three. Our doula had Carey positioned with her legs spread, grabbing underneath her knees, being ready to pull her legs to her chest when a contraction came on. I was given the role of supporting Carey’s neck when she rolled her body doubled over. “Alright. One’s coming,” Carey announced. The doctor explained that at the top of the peak of the contraction Carey should push with all her might down and out. Bearing down, they called it. Carey gritted her teeth and tensed all the muscles in her body, holding her breath, eyes squeezed shut, pushing from the inside outward. She gasped for air at the end. The doctor at the other end of Carey inserted an internal monitor (twisted up wires) through a tube up inside the birth canal. “What are you doing?! What is that?!” Carey had apparently forgotten what that little doohickey was. We learned all about it in one of our birthing classes. As I mentioned earlier, its braided wires attached at the end to this sharp metal piece that actually sticks into the skin of the baby’s head in order to monitor the heart rate as accurate as possible. All Carey saw was a foreign object being stuck up her hoohoo without any explanation. So the doctor started to explain, but Carey interrupted with another oncoming contraction and a giant push. After this one, Carey apologized to everyone in the room. Apparently, she had defecated during that last enormous push. Everybody consoled her telling her not to worry about it, that just means that she’s pushing using the right muscles. I guess she hadn’t up-chucked everything after all. Our nurse practitioner from the clinic spoke up with some advice. “Okay, Carey. This next time I want you to just push with your splicketybloo. Push through and into the pain only using your splicketybloo. Okay?” The word she used was not splicketybloo, obviously, but it sounded just as fake and a term I had no familiarity with whatsoever. I hoped Carey knew what she meant because on the next big push she kept shouting, “Splicketybloo!. Use your splicketybloo to push through. Splicketybloo! No! Not out your mouth. Don’t make any noises out of your mouth. The energy escapes that way. Push from within outward using your splicketybloo!” Carey must have dropped another deuce because she apologized again to everyone in the room. They all said the same thing. No problem. Everyone does that. It’s fine. You’re doing great. During the next push I actually saw the top of Judah’s head, with wisps of dark hair on it, starting to come out. At the high point of the contraction his head almost came through, but then it ended and his head went back inside a bit. Here’s where Carey started to hit the wall. The pain was too much. She was being stretched out with no relief. “I can’t do this ohhh. I need to push. Owww. I can't do this! I'm not gonna be able to do this!” Everyone yelled at her not to push until the next contraction came on. It didn’t take long. Her face was so scrunched up, she was exerting so much force, I thought she was going to rocket launch her own skeleton out of her vagina. All eyes were on Carey’s birthing canal. Everyone was loudly supportive. YOUR DOING GREAT! ALMOST THERE! PUSH!PUSH! And out he came. A frightening whitish-gray creature that looked like Gollum, but with better posture, slid out of Carey. World meet Judah. I don’t even know which one of the medical staff pulled him out. They were taking turns. It wasn’t the lady with the face shield, though. Whoever it was flipped him around and someone immediately scissored his umbilical cord. Blood squirted out the end up into the air. The doula had the camera and snapped a pic of him at one second old. Three NICU people took him over to a little table and wiped him down. Everybody was going at light speed. He immediately changed color while he cried. Beautiful. Now Judah, the new person Judah, was a purplish red. Carey lost it before I did. Carey was not done with her work, however. There was talk of forcibly removing the placenta, which our doula warned us about. Impatient and fearful doctors are often anxious for closure. They’ve got a golf game to get to or whatever. But it was only a matter of minutes before Carey pushed that out too. I only caught a glimpse of it through a small line of sight between two nurses’ bodies. It was very red, slippery, and had an odd shape like a deformed alien manta ray being. After a quick scrub down, they wrapped Judah man up and let us hold him for about 20 seconds. We were all teary and bewildered and in awe. The doula snapped another pic of our brand new family before they took him away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. I followed and stood next to him hanging out in his crib and watched him. When I looked at my watch, I had been on my feet for an hour and a half just staring at him. I cupped his head in my palm or I gave him my finger and he wrapped his entire hand around it. There was an immediate connection that I have never experienced before in my life. A sudden and deep familiarity. Like I thought, I know this guy. I really know who this is. I know him better than anyone else save Carey. I was on the other side now. A father and not just a son. A parent and not just an offspring. Carey popped up to the NICU almost exactly two hours after Judah entered our world. A nurse wheeled her up and into the unit, but as soon as she entered the room she, too, was on her feet weeping and alongside me falling in love with our new person who had arrived.

Whiny

2010-06-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

[May 10, 2010]

I'm sick and tired of doing all the work. This semi bedrest business is a bee-otch of the highest order. Carey is easily exhausted, irritable, whiny, and occasionally demanding. We tried to see Iron Man 2 with our friends Chad and Angie Friday night. Carey worked six hours that day and we had to hit the movie right after her work. She complained almost relentlessly before and after the movie. I think the problem was we didn't get a proper dinner. Fridays are stressful at her work anyway. We had some people save us places in line for the Imax experience. Carey sat down by the concession while we stood and waited for the doors to open. We got snacks (Carey insisted we pay for them since C & H bought our tickets) and she was there when the food was being ordered but when we got to our seats she asked where was her water. So I had to trudge back through the narrow row stepping on people's purses and feet to get the damn water. Then when I got back she said, "You missed the A-Team preview. Why are you so tense?" After the show she repeated over and over about how this was too much for her blah, blah blah. We won't be going out on weeknights, perhaps ever again. The first few weeks of doing everything I could deal with. And Carey was really grateful. Every meal I didn't ruin was a treat. But now she's getting nit-picky. And she doesn't communicate all the details of creating a multiple step dinner. Last night she laid on the couch (her downstairs station) while she instructed me on how to make a particular meal. I fucking hate cooking. But I've been good about it until lately. I'm back in the mental state where if it's up to me I inadvertently make the wrong choices. She said fry some garlic in a pan. Turned out I needed a large pan. I asked what I should prep before I cook. She left out the part about chopping up the sausage. I spent forever on that stupid meal. It sucked, took a long time to make, and then was over in like seven minutes. This morning I made her oatmeal with sliced up mangoes and maple syrup. In order to not accidentally mangle her breakfast, I brought her up all the different individual parts. Bowl of oatmeal, scored mango, soy milk, maple syrup. Apparently I had scored the mango into too big of chunks. And there was too much oatmeal in the bowl. She wanted only half the amount so that there could be some the next day. It's true she is a food snob of monumental proportions, but cut me some slack! That same day when I was trying to find the oatmeal she was lying in bed on the phone yakking it up with one of her mothers. I brought up this container with like an eighth of an inch of oatmeal in it with raisins. Are we out? I mouthed. She waved me off and told me the oatmeal is in the freezer. Which it was. Later she informed me, "You know that container you showed me that you thought was oatmeal with raisins?" I looked at her. "That was muesli!" I continued to look at her. She thought this was hysterical! How could anyone be so stupid as to mix up oatmeal with 18 remaining crumbs of muesli? I threw out the damn muesli. In her defense, as an independent person who excels at cooking, it must suck to have to rely on joe-retard-in-the-kitchen to prepare your food all the time. She likes her food a certain way. I don't blame her. I'm just tired of learning all nine billion different variations on ten trillion different dishes. I guess whiny is contagious.

To Cut or Not to Cut

2010-06-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

[May 5, 2010]

Since our baby has a penis we have had to hash out our position on circumcision. And what better place to do it then at a restaurant with our close friends celebrating Carey's birthday? Granted, that's not the only time we've discussed it. Over the last few weeks we've talked about it almost without ceasing. And since Carey is on bed rest, we've had several friends bring us dinner. While they eat with us having nowhere to run, we bring up the topic of baby penises (Peni?). JB and Rob brought us dinner the other night and we grilled them on the subject. Rob has two teenage sons. But he told us it was never an issue because even though he is a devout atheist, he and his first wife decided to raise their boys Jewish. Thanks for nothing. But I must say the lentil soup was unexpectedly delicious! Neel and Josie brought us dinner one night. Their Rowan will be two years this month. When it came time for themto make the call, they had a brief discussion and came to an immediate decision not to cut. Carey had recently read an article about the pros of circumcision. I guess for the very young and the very old and those who are developmentally challenged, keeping that uncircumcised wiener clean is a challenge. There's also some statistic about a higher chance of contracting STIs if you are uncut. Carey read that for old duff's junk, nursing home staff often skip that part of the bath. This was the pro-cut argument we were considering of late. Neel and Josie discussed how circumcision traced back to a religious and then cultural practice and since they, too, are practicing atheists, they found it a bit antiquated and barbaric to cut off part of their son's penis. Sure, but we also have parts of our body that are purposeless that we are no better for having or not having. Like an appendix, for example. What's a little skin removed gonna do? Neel brought up a comparison that didn't quite fit at first. Female circumcision is waaay more drastic and heinous and purely evil than male circumcision. Calling that circumcision is a diabolical understatement. It's removing the clitoris. It should have another name. One that when heard would make your ears and eyes bleed. Also, those men who did that/do that should have their balls ripped out and fed to them. Ahem. Moving right along. But then Neel reprised his argument and asked, "How would you feel about having some of your baby daughter's labia removed just because that was the order of the day?" Touché. That would be absolutely horrific. Food for thought.

Back to the restaurant scene where the original members of The Happy Lucky Insult Club (Dan, Toby, Becky, Eric, Carey, yours truly) discussed the issue at hand. We'd already talked to Becky. Her stance is she believes you shouldn't cut off part of someone's body without their permission (without a really good reason. For more on the gay perspective I interviewed Eric. He said, with a deeply concerned sigh and I quote, "I'm just really torn." To which I burst out laughing. Not just because of the imagery from his connecting statement, but because of how sincere and troubled he expressed those words. Dan, too, was on the fence. He saw the pros and cons to both as well as we did. He says he wishes he wasn't circumcised, but then is so used to the cut look... he goes back and forth. Toby shrugged his shoulders and the table behind us all got up and left.

Our friends just had a baby boy in April. They didn't circumcise. They read that it's only around 50% of male American births now that do the ol' snip. The new father said, "I think his penis looks fine just the way it is." Our new pediatrician says the number is more like 70%, but he's also very pro-circumcision.

Then Carey abandoned ship. She decided it was up to me since I, like my son, have a penis. I still talked it out with her. Considering that circumcision does come from a Judeo-Christian belief that neither Carey nor I adhere to and just because it has been traditionally done by Americans is not a significant argument to convince me that it should be done. The uncut look is not that attractive to me, but maybe that's just the social conditioning I've been programmed with. And the way my own junk has always looked. Also, I've only seen a few uncuts in Spain at that clothing-optional beach where that one guy was seriously super uncircumcised and yet he walked with pride. (Of course it didn't hurt that he was in stride with those Spanish foxes at his sides, sans clothes...Damn, I love that beach! )Ultimately, when he's old enough to wisely make those decision for himself, if he so chooses to get it cut then, be my guest. And if for some odd reason there's ever a time when he
notices that other boy's members differ from his own in the amount of skin at the top, I'll just give him Neel's line - "Yeah, when I was born that's what everybody did with their baby boys. Some people still do it. They cut off a part of the penis. Kinda weird, don't you think?"

Birthing Classes Rated

2010-06-26T15:22:00.001-07:00

[April 26, 2010]

Birth Class: INFANT CPR AND SAFETY
Props: Baby doll that you can breathe into and it's chest will expand. Rubber face wrapped around doll head reminded me of West World. Repeat after me, "Car seats, car seats, car seats, car seats, car seats, car seats, car seats, car seats, CAR SEATS, CAR SEATS, CAR SEATs, Car Seats! Car Seats! CAAAR SEEEATS!"
Fellow Classmates: Jackass dude with his head in his iPhone playing games, laughing at inappropriate times during the video, no affection for pregnant partner or interest in being there. Probably drunk. One couple was 45 hundred years old with twins (how did THAT happen?). Everyone else was noticeably unattractive.
Instructor: Mildly entertaining. Suburban over-tanned, proud mom of two 20 something girls. Bubbly but not all that annoying.
Summary: How to give Cardio Respiratory Resuscitation to your baby when they choke on a hot dog (a food apparently designed to kill babies) or just stop breathing altogether. How to not kill your baby. Things that will kill your baby include blankets, crib bumpers, sleeping on stomach, parents looking away from their baby for one second.
Class grade: B-

Birth Class: BIRTHING (all day)
Props: A lot of DVDs, a black baby, birthing ball, bucket of ice (for putting your hand in to simulate a contraction to practice breathing techniques to get through the pain during 30, 45, and 90 second segments. It hurt like hell!)
Fellow Classmates: International Microsoft Suburbanites. We had lunch with a few of them. One guy had a thick accent, but looked like a tan American. His wife was definitely Indonesian. Some moron asked where he was from and he gave the dreaded, "Take a guess." She guessed Spain and he laughed at her. Then he asked me, an innocent bystander. Quickly thinking of a way to cover for my Amero-centric ignorance, I blurted out, "Microsoft?" Which was true and then he told us Israel and we all let out our breath.
Instructor(s): Old mommy first half, butch gym coach second half.
Summary: What happens when a baby is born. The horror of labor. Medications that speed up labor, kill the pain and all of the insane amounts of side effects that come from those interventions. The demon possession of contractions. "The placenta is huge!"
Class Grade: C+

Birth Class: BREASTFEEDING
Props: Fake babies, I mean dolls, chart of the variety of breasts/areola as well as the changes they take on during pregnancy/breastfeeding, a plush stuffed-animal-esque breast that turns inside-out to show how milk flows. (When the instructor first turned it inside-out the whole class almost went down like the interns in the opening credits to Quincy M.E.).
Fellow Classmates: Class consisted of four preggers only two of which brought their husbands. I was one of those poor bastards.
Instructor: Whisper-talker trying to make everything she said sound meaningful and serious.
Summary: Uncomfortable AND a waste of time. The awkwardness level was off the charts. At one point the instructor said, and I'm not making this up, "Areola comes in all sizes. Am I right, fellas?" (she looked at us for what felt like a 45 minute pause waiting for a reply) "Guys! You're supposed to say 'I don't know!'" For most of the class we watched a DVD narrated by the latest expert in the field, some Australian grandma. Also, it turns out breastfeeding is easy, dummies! Countless times the instructor tilted her head back, put her finger to her nose (indicating the nipple) and brought it down, "and baby will root around and latch on no problem." Yeah, right. It's not just that baby that sucks...
Class Grade:D+

Birth Class: CONSCIOUS FATHERING
Props: Asian baby girl doll, onesies, pajamas, diapers, swaddling blanket
Fellow Classmates: Jam-packed with about 27 dudes, several coming in late and not getting a practice baby and having to sit on the side. Oh, and one preggers too. One guy not only came in late, but he brought his wife! The instructor stopped the class and fake invited her to stay OR she could mill around outside until it was over. She decidedly said she'd stay taking up a seat so some other poor sap had to sit on the side by himself with no doll, blanket, or diapers. Yeah, we all knew who wielded the whip in their house. What a winner. The menfolk varied from indie-folk bearded guys to just-took-their-ties-off corporate drones to bewildered blue-collar macho types.
Instructor: A balding unbelievably average Joe whose voice sounded exactly like Juno's dad.
Summary: (This class I dreaded the most. The name alone was enough to make me wanna run for the hills. Carey suggested if I didn't like it I could leave at the break. Duh. So with fear and trepidation I took my seat and my doll and tried not to go into a panic attack out when the first order of business was to hold our doll-babies in a few different positions.) Pertinent information on infants' needs and practical skills on handling your newborn. Using the provided CPR baby, we learned how to clothe and disrobe a baby, change a diaper, appropriately burp the baby, swaddle, and best positions to not drop the baby. After the halfway point break, only two guys bailed. The class turned out to be very empowering and not anything like the name. In the end I evaluated the class with high marks, but asked that they change the name. Conscious Fathering sounds vague and wimpy not at all like the practical, informative class that it describes.
Class Grade: A-

Prenatal Clinic of Maladies

2010-06-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

[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?

Allergies, Boy Epiphany, and an Unwanted Nickname

2010-06-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

March 5, 2010

I feel like Carey has been a little bit whinier lately. And a little more defensive then usual. Like the kind of snappishness you get when your blood sugar is low and dinner is late and everything your partner says sets you off? Like that. But some times even AFTER dinner. She's definitely a lot sleepier. Maybe it's because Spring came early. Carey's allergies are pretty bad. She decided a while ago that all medications are bad for the baby. So she won't even think about Claritin. Even after we double checked with the doctor (Carey asked at least three different times if it was okay and all three times it was okayed) she is still hesitant to take anything. So she's had these sneezing, drippy nose and coughing fits. And frankly, they have begun to irritate me. She chooses really inopportune times to have these fits, ya know? It's so annoying! Like the other night she fell asleep on the couch. I had to wake her up to bring her to bed. After I shut down the house and met her upstairs, oh time for an allergy attack. She was peacefully sleeping just seconds ago! I'm already under the covers when she decides to have this ridiculously long and involved asthma freak out. She was all gagging and choking and coughing up death. And it went on and on and on and on and on. Coughing and gagging and choking and spitting up into the toilet. On and on. She asked me for a tissue after it was winding down. I'm like, your standing right by the toilet paper! Why should I have to get out of bed to fetch facial tissue when her hand is less than eight inches away from the TP. As I said before, I was already under the covers. It's eleven o'clock at night. I'm tired! Sheesh. I guess it was so bad that the next day her abdominal muscles were sore. Of course she was worried this negatively affected Mr. Baby. She was also worried at the rock show we went to last night. The last song of Erik Blood's set had this pounding drum machine beat heavy on the kick drum. She hid behind me placing her belly right up against my lower back to protect Mr. Baby from the rhythmic onslaught. I think it was a good idea.

My central creative focus right now is on recording The Glasses next album. I really only have until June/July before I have to be done. I imagine the baby will be all-consuming of my energies. The mix of baby and music will be an interesting one. As it is, I'm being kicked out of the upstairs room in April. I'll have to take all my gear to the guest room. But I'm trying not to think about that right now. Presently I'm in the best stage of making a new album - the writing/recording of demos.

So I'm still adjusting to our baby being a boy. I mean I'm totally over it and fine that it's a boy. What helped was someone gave me a new perspective. I don't remember who it was, but when this person found out it's a boy, they said, "Oh. So you'll have a little Will running around, huh?" I never thought about it that way. This epiphany is making a huge difference in how I feel about Judah. Because, hey! If there's one person I really like, it's me! I mean, I knew all along that I'd be dressing him up like me. But then I took it further. Of how I want to be. Do they have baby ascots? What about infant-sized smoking jackets? I could mark his upper lip to give him a pencil mustache. Baby John Waters! Or really, the best would be like a Frenchman. With the red and white striped long-sleeve sailor shirt and the beret. Will's better dressed miniature-sized person, Judah. Carey has no sense of humor about this at all. She doesn't want me "dressing up" the baby. I think it would be cool. Regardless of her complaints, he will have a Frenchman outfit. I can guarantee you that! He can wear it when he plays with his unicorn.

I tried to express to Carey how much I have been enjoying her pregnant body. I kind of stumbled on my words trying to be careful to not make her feel self-conscious. Instead, with accusation in her voice she proclaimed, "That's because you like big bottom girls." Just because of the tone she used I started to get defensive and then quickly remembered that it's absolutely true. Why would anyone think this is a bad thing?

Getting Carey riled up these days is suuuper easy. All I have to do is lean over to her protruding belly and say, "How's our little Ju?" She HATES that. Sounds too much like I'm saying "jew". So what? It's not a curse word. It'd be like if I said, "How's our little Russian?" And Ju is definitely short for Judah. She wants it to be Jude, which I'm not too keen on. I really do think that he will eventually go by the nickname Ju. It just sounds cool. But I'll probably call him Judah. I know two syllables is a lot to ask of someone, but I think I can manage.

Unicorns: Only for Girls

2010-05-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

[February 22-23, 2010]

Like the wedding industry, the baby stuff empire is a total racket. There is so much ridiculous crap out there that nobody needs. Baby wipe warmers? COME ON! And another thing, the genderizing of babies is infuriating. Colors, toys, and even animals have already been violently divided into what's for boy babies and what's for girls. Boys can't have cats. They have to have dogs. Cats are for girl babies. A baby girl's room CANNOT be decorated with anything having to do with transportation like planes, trains or automobiles. Girls don't like transportation, I guess. It's so stupid. I asked Carey what about unicorns? She laughed in my face. "Are you serious? Unicorns are only for girls!" I disagreed. You are telling me that ALL unicorns are ONLY for girls? On our way to a baby shower we carpooled with Toby and Bex. Carey couldn't wait to ask them their take on the issue. Sure enough, they both sided with unicorns are for girls. Toby pointed out that though they were for girls, there still were boy and girl unicorns not to mention the gay ones. But Carey didn't stop there. She interviewed every single person she came in contact with at the shower to prove her point. "Unicorns are associated with princesses and rainbows and magical fairy tales," she explained with Rush Limbaugh smugness. I don't know. A unicorn by itself seems pretty gender neutral to me. I think I'll buy Judah a unicorn right now off the Internet. Stand by...

While I'm waiting for Judah's new toy to arrive (see picture below) I thought I'd mention a few new developments. First off the baby is kicking now quite a bit. It only started in the last week. I guess it feels like a little flutter or something. , Carey is very happy whenever it occurs because it assures her that the baby is still alive. Sunday morning she shouted from the upstairs bedroom, "Bring me some orange juice!" As the dutiful husband/pop-to-be I brought her a small glass. She wanted to rile up the baby so I could feel a kick. She downed the juice, placed my two hands at the ideal spot but nothing happened. She tried going to the bathroom to wake him up. Afterward she laid down and he did kick. That is, until I got there waiting to feel. "That evasive little shit!" she said. But now that she's become accustomed to feeling kicks all the time when nothing happens she works herself into a panic. Even the consulting nurse didn't make her feel any better. She made an appointment with the clinic. Before visiting the doctor she asked me if I thought she was crazy. Of course I answered in the affirmative. I told her they'd say just what I've been saying (baby's only kick some of the time and that no kicking did not equal dead), but that she wouldn't be able to calm herself down unless she hears it from a medical professional. After the visit she texted me with poor spelling, "Worry was for nothing (smiley face emoticon) hes afine little boy." The other new thing is Carey has started to have severe back pain. It's one of two things: the baby is probably just sitting on a nerve or it's just typical for all the new added weight of the pregnancy. Her body has to compensate for those gargantuan breasts alone not to mention the cute little protruding belly that is really starting to grow. But it is still a bummer. Her job is so physical. Now when she gets home she has to lay down and put her feet up. Carey feels bad that I have to do everything now, wait on her hand and foot. I told her that she should continue to feel bad as it makes what I'm doing all the more admirable.

Between all this baby kicking and never-ending back pain I was able to slip in a love-making session. One time at least. I can't wait for the alleged spike in libido that's supposed to come to the pregnant lady later on. My big brother, Wayne, informed me that the third trimester horniness does not happen to everybody. That it's kind of a myth. Obviously I'm hoping it happens to Carey. Between puffs off his cigar my brother quipped, "You need to keep your little 30-something boner in check."

Oh boy

2010-05-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

(February 18, 2010)

Well...it's a boy. When the ultra sound tech gave us the news I'm afraid I wasn't able to hide my devastation. This was exacerbated by having Sam and Mary Kay (Carey's parents) in the room. Not that they did anything in particular, I just couldn't be honest. Also, his thing was barely visible. Not like his cousin Silas'. The other day my sister Wendy emailed us the ultra sound showing no doubts about what sex Silas was. It literally looked like a third leg! I hope this is just a late-bloomer situation... Anyway, Carey finally had to explain to her parents that I had really wanted a girl. I was in a gloom. When the parents left the room so Carey could dress, I let slip that I didn't feel like I had a clue on how to father a son. Having a daughter seems more natural to me for some reason. My whole life I've been part of the girl-crazy club. Fascinated by this mysterious sex. I guess I've always felt a little uncomfortable around males. Most of them anyway. Not the gays, though. I feel fine around them. I'll have to further investigate this issue...

On the way to lunch afterward Carey's mom called her sister (the one who predicted a boy by the threaded needle test) to share the good news. I texted my sister and she called back half a second later. She just happened to be at my parent's house so I got to tell them as well. They were actually ecstatic. I thought they'd be bored by now this being grandkid number four and all. We weren't sure if we were going to announce the name now that we had the sex. All of a sudden Carey had cold feet about our name choice. This was a surprise to me. I thought we were decided. We ended up telling her parents. Mary Kay had never heard of it before. Judah. Sam was familiar, it being a Hebrew character from the Old Testament and all. Judah was the 4th son of Jacob. The tribe of Judah. Lion of Judah. But this isn't where or why we chose the name. Carey and I just both thought it sounded cool. Rock and roll. And fairly unique. I mean there's Judah Ben-Hur, but most people don't remember the Judah part from the Charlton Heston movie. There's Judah Freidlander the scruffy, freaky guy from 30 Rock, but again, most people aren't interested in TV side character actor's real names. The fact that it is uncommon has a great appeal to us too. Judah Samuel Wagler sounds mighty Jewish. Judah is a strong sounding word, though. Plus, I can go, "Who da man? Judah man!" I ended up calling my parents back and telling them. Of course my dad loved the name because of the Biblical reference. I knew he would. Judah means "praised one". Still, I really had my heart set on a girl.

My disappointment over the last few days eventually began to worry Carey. It was just that people were totally saying the wrong things. Like Carey's parents talked about how now that it's a boy I could have a bandmate. Why not a girl bandmate? And I got a text from a friend that was really kind but... well, here's what it said "Having a son is amazing. I am really, very, sincerely happy for both of you. But the world needs more boys with smart, aware, and capable fathers, so I'm doubly happy for you and (my son's) generation." This friend is an exceptional father. He's definitely of the male feminist persuasion. And his son is already handsome and very smart. The text was a complimentary message to me but... would he have written that if it was a girl? Is it because we are stuck living in a patriarchy already and that we need males that are not sexist, homophobic, bigots who are multiculturally aware more than girls that are strong individuals who could also be fine examples? I don't know. And then there's all this boy's colors and girl's colors for baby clothes and crib blankets. All that conventional genderizing bullshit gets under my skin. And I know people aren't trying to be sexist, but really most are stuck in traditional, inaccurate views of who people are inside and what defines gender. Let the boy wear pink. I wear pink shirts. I don't give a damn. Let strangers on the street get his sex wrong. Who gives a fuck? And why am I in such a nasty mood? Carey needed reassurance that I was going to love our baby even though it's a boy. Sure I'm bummed that we are having a boy just like five couple friends already have before us, but going into this, I knew there were no guarantees. I even said out loud that there's always next time to get a girl. Maybe it's for the better because I could identify with her as being the youngest like myself. I like the name Judah and I like calling him Judah and he's still my kid, right? I think I'm mellowing out already. Carey even said she was going to stop trying to convince me and just let me process. That's what I need. It is exciting to know the sex. It makes it that much more real. We can use accurate pronouns and say his name in conversation. Carey is a little freaked out by it being a boy for completely different reasons. She thinks it's bizarre that there is a penis growing inside of her. I've refrained from the obvious bit about it not being the first time... She even wrote it on her Facebook, "Carey Goldenberg has a penis growing inside her....weird! Its a BOY!!!"

In other news, Carey is definitely showing signs of having the typical hormonal moods. The other night while cooking and watching the opening ceremonies to the winter Olympics on the Internet, she couldn't keep from weeping. All she could squeak out between sobs was, "I'm just so proud of Canada."

Prophetic Dreams?

2010-05-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

[February 15, 2010]

Last night we had friends over for dinner for Valentine's day on our newly made (by me!) dining room table. Carey's folks (Sam and Mary Kay) are in town for a few days too. After the parents went to bed, Carey told us all that she had a dream that the baby is a girl. Of course I wanted to know all about this dream. What was it in the dream that convinced her it was a girl? In what weird way did her dream convey that message? What sort of surreal subliminal communication relayed this information? I imagined David Lynchian sources. Like withered old clowns hanging from meat hooks spelling out "girl" with maritime signal flags. I figured the more cryptic, the more legitimate. Turns out it was straight forward. In it we were at the doctor's office, there was an ultrasound, and it was announced that the baby is a girl. The end. BO-ring. What a boring, boring dream. Unless of course it turns out to be the opposite... The sex of the baby is definitely in the forefront of our minds. I'm pretty sure we both want a girl. I know I do. Carey is worried that if it's a boy, I won't love it or whatever. I always tease her and say, "Well, if it's a boy maybe it will be gay." On our own at different times we have scanned our innermost intuitions trying to tap into the universe to figure out what sex we think the baby is. We both go back and forth. Sometimes the universe gives us a leaning towards it being a boy. Sometimes a girl. We just don't have a clue. But tomorrow science and technology will bring us the answer!

Carey is starting to feel kicks. She says it's all on the inside. When she goes for a long period of time without any kick-like sensations, she doubts the previous ones ever existed outside of her mind. But she woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago and tried to rouse me out of my NyQuil slumber (I'm nursing a serious cold right now) to put my hand on her tummy and catch baby in the act. I don't remember this, but I do know that Carey sleeps through everything. So if this woke her up it had to be real.

The whole nesting/mothering/fathering thing is something Carey and I have been accusing each other of lately. As mentioned earlier, I just finished making a dining room table out of reclaimed wood. This "creation" of mine Carey thinks is a sort of substitution for not being able to grow a baby inside of my stomach. Even though it was her idea for me to make the table in the first place! The truth is the cats are getting a whole bunch of mothering from her as of late. She checked a book out from the library all about cats. It convinced her the cats are bored, unhappy. This was Carey's excuse for buying five new cat toys. She's closely monitoring the cat's new diet. She has begun a regiment of exercising the cats before they eat (as recommended from the book) by a game of chase the laser pointer dot. She's mentioned several times her concern they don't like the newish litter box. Victor's already gone to the vet twice this year. In her favor, they have been acting strangely since she got pregnant, but they seem to be at a heightened level in her attention/mothering radar.

Dream No 2 [February 16, 2010]

Carey had another dream last night about the sex of the baby. This time it was a boy. Actually two boys. One was 5 and one 16. In the dream she slowly realized that the hospital was trying to take advantage of her, but not because of the extreme ages of her newborns. She told them that it would have been more convincing if they had just brought out one boy (5 or 16 year old?) because she knew from the ultrasound that there was only one baby in her before she gave birth. She also had a suspicion and asked if the kids had special needs. The hospital admitted that yes, the boys did have special needs. She knew it! Also they were both foster kids. So, still in line with dream logic, Carey marched the boys down to "the agency" to return them. We go to the sex-identifying ultrasound in minutes...

Pop

2010-05-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

[February 9, 2010]

I came to what I want my kid to call me by accident. Recently, because of the economy (and the "challenged" administration here), a reorganization took place within the Seattle Public Library system. I will be transferred from my library branch, Queen Anne to someone else's library branch, Northeast. Driving home from a going away dinner (half the staff was transferred therefore half got tiny going away gifts from the remaining staff at an American Chinese restaurant...I got a Smencil, an aromatic pencil) I imagined a scenario where me and my toddler-aged kid would be at the Capitol Hill library sometime in the future and we'd run into one of these soon to be ex-coworkers. In this mundane daydream, still with social etiquette in tact, I would certainly have to introduce my offspring to one of these people. In this pretend scenario I addressed my kid and said 'Hey (fill in the blank with the kid's name). This person used to be your pop's old boss." And there is was. Pop. When I told Carey, she reminded me that her dad wants to be called poppy, so this kind of works as the father version - pop. Carey already decided to push having our kid(s) call her dad "Poppy-Sam". Has a nice ring, no? I called my father dad. I don't like daddy, though. Also, being a purveyor of indie-pop music, pop has that extra added layer of meaningfulness. Well, to me anyway...

So nothing all that new and interesting has been going on pregnancy wise. For like the entire last month. Carey's got a little tummy now. Ultrasounds and doctor visits are becoming part of the biweekly routine. Next Tuesday, a week from today, Care's folks are gonna be with us in the ultrasound room when the tech will give a full one hour anatomy scan. We'll find out the sex of the little person. Then maybe we'll start telling people the name. Maybe.

On the "bedroom sports" front, everything is still mostly the same. Once a week has become a struggle to maintain. Carey admitted that she's psychologically afraid of doing any damage to the baby besides just having a low libido. She's worried that because of her uterine anomaly that even achieving orgasm might somehow disrupt the precarious situation. She knows in reality this isn't true, but still in her mind...she's just stuck. But saying that out loud kind of freed her up a bit. Her attention focused on the naughty-lovin' task at hand worked! I must admit that her ahem, juicier, fuller, more voluptuous expanded areas are all the more enticing! I was talking to her while she was showering and I got all worked up just looking. I had to take her right there after she dried off. But she insisted she put on her new cutey thong panties with tiny pictures of scooters and ruffles. The position and angle were perfectly framed in the bathroom mirror for optimum viewing. Life is good, my friends! Life. Is. Good.

Opinions at the Bottom of the Year

2010-05-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

[December 31, 2009]

Well, it's official. It's a boy. How do I know this with such certainty at such an early date in the pregnancy, you ask? Why, from Carey's superstitious mother's side of the family of course. We just got back from the holiday octo-athalon - eight family/friend party/get-togethers in five days. At party no. 5 the speculations were flying. Buzzed on a white Russian I complied to the threaded needle test. I didn't even know what was going on. Carey's aunt ordered me to show my palm. Then she wagged a threaded needle three times back and forth into my thumb pit. Then she held it over my palm to watch whether it would swing back and forth or in a circle. It went back and forth and therefore, she proclaimed with utmost certainty, a boy. Carey's mom confirmed this by noting that if it was a girl it would have stolen Carey's beauty (which it hasn't, was the point). I get that there's a compliment in there, but come on! Throughout the parties I received lots of congratulations. For the new house, for graduating with my Masters of Library and Information Science degree and most often for the baby.

Started reading The Hobbit to the baby last night. Monday will be 12 weeks and we'll have made it over the first trimester. The real dangerous period will be in the 20 weeks range, or so they tell us.

Carey's really starting to fill out. Her breasts are expanding at an alarming rate. Big and full. She has a slight bump in her lower tummy. I know these things not from personal exploration of the sexy kind, but because she examines herself everyday in the mirror and makes me look and occasionally cop a feel. The other day when we got back from our Christmas in Connecticut trip I took my pants and boxers off to put in the washer. Standing there in nothing but my t shirt and black socks I approached her. "What do you think of this?" She gave a pitiful look and said, "Awww. It looks sad." I corrected her and explained the word was not sad but neglected. She didn't take the hint so I put some clean clothes on instead. Just this morning I offhandedly suggested she give me the oral pleasure (not in those words) and she said, "Okay probably later."Yes! This was the first time in six years when we visited her family where we didn't do it (or anything like it) even one time. But the good news is that she really is for sure this time having less morning sickness. Even last night she grilled meat without gagging or freaking out too bad about the smell. The night before that she even made us mac 'n cheese. She seriously hasn't cooked in like two months. It's good to have her back. I'm such a lousy cook.

Here we are at the bottom of the year. And it certainly feels like it. Like the way Sunday evenings feel at the end of the week when you are just plain worn out. I woke up bored this morning with little desire to do anything. I forced myself to write this entry inspired by Adrian Mole's dedication to writing in his journal just about everyday. This should be a really big year for us. For both Carey and my profession (I would get a job as a librarian, she would expand hers by hiring employees) for the band's next album and of course for having a baby in July. 2010 coming right up!

Nausea , Sci-fi and More

2010-05-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

[December 18, 2009]

Finally, FINALLY the nausea is dissipating. This last weekend we visited my folks and sister for (my nephew) Silas' baby dedication and then the next day we celebrated Fake-Christmas. Carey was sick most of the time. The sickest she's been the whole pregnancy, in fact. She puked a lot, poor thing. Then again, it might have just been the company we were keeping (wink). Several days have gone by with no sign of the dry heaves. But then this morning in bed she started gagging uncontrollably. I didn't even move. I'm so numb to it now. I just told her to eat a cracker. Mr. sensitive, I know. The newest thing, however is her wild mood swings.

The other day she was angry, short with people, and generally in a rage. In our ongoing problems with Group Health, we got a bill for $400 for Carey's HSG thingy. They billed us because it was labeled under fertility. This keeps happening, though they keep promising it won't. So she called them up and they refused to fix it. They said it would have to go to appeals. So she blew up and screamed at the lady on the phone that Group Health is a bunch of quote, mother-fucking sexists, end quote. Then a few hours later she was walking in a cross-walk while a car was turning left and didn't see her, almost hitting her. The curse words again, but also she mentally snapped and smashed her purse against the side of the car (the driver responded with the middle finger, but otherwise let her live, thank the good lord). Inside the purse she shattered her hand sanitizer bottle all over the place. Later when I got home she was really upset at herself for her outrageous behavior. I was just glad she didn't get in a brawl. But then the next night she was all euphoric laughing and being silly and not criticizing me or making me do work. Not just in a good mood, but in a super good mood! Everything is rainbows and puppy dogs and sunshine and happy togetherness!

Carey's still pushing Judah for a boy's name. Until now I have been able to easily shrug off her tactics of getting me to agree with her. But then she upped her game. She reminded me that I was the one who came up with it. So I'd get the credit. I'm such a sucker to flattery. Then she said this - "Judah. It's so rock-n-roll." Now I can't stop thinking of it in that context. In those words. She really knows how to get her way. She should be a hostage negotiator.

On the car ride to Portland to visit the fam, I brought up my thoughts on baby room decorations. Not being a fan of babies or baby stuff in general, I wanted to nix the shi shi idea of a babyish baby room right from the start. You know, teddy bears and bright colors and all that horrible stuff. Giant murals of crappy fantasy characters or whatever childish theme covers the walls. Like everything else, I want it minimal. Turns out that Carey already has some ideas for themes. If it's a boy, she wants to do a space theme. And if it's a girl she suggested moons and stars and suns. I like those ideas for sure, but they both sounded like the same thing. She assured me that one is more boyish and the other more girlish. "Space" would be more of a Sci-fi kinda thing, she explained.Like rocketships and astronauts. The other would just be celestial body or nebula or like comets and supernovas and galaxies. No fictional technology or futuristic speculation, I guess. I think they should both get sci fi. There's no way I'm gonna limit my girl to conventional gender roles. Fuck that. I will teach her everything I know. From carpentry to car maintenance to sewing. Oh, wait. Sewing's already for girls. My point is, I am adamant about not constraining my child to conventional gender roles. No patriarchy here. What's the word for both patri and monarchy? Equality, I suppose. Equalarchy. Did I just make up a word?

Tuesday we'll go in for another ultrasound: 10 weeks 2 days!

On the doin' it front, things have gotten slightly better. Five days ago she gave me a lovely "sexual favor". It's funny the games we play. We had a silly bet that both of us knew she'd lose so she offered that if she lost she'd give me a particular "sexual favor". And if she won? A good night's sleep. This was her subtle way of making up for her non-existent libido. And it was a fantastic favor, let me tell you! One of those earth-shaking experiences where afterwords you think, "If this got around it could end war!" Then last night in bed before we fell asleep, she asked me (just like every night) to rub her uterus and talk to the baby. I started there but my hand, of its own free will...well, you get the picture. Good times. And her only complaint was asking that I use less saliva when we kissed. Weird because that's never been an issue. Also, I must explain that this was more of a, how should I put this, more of a one-sided affair, if you get my drift. I used to feel bad when this happened, but these days I acknowledge her self-sacrificing attitude. Bless my baby mama for giving it up with little to nothing in return!

...

2010-05-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

[December 10, 2009]

Not really much happening these days, actually. We had the second Ultrasound the other day from Dr. Cricket Davenport. That is her real name! It's like, "Paging Dr. Grasshopper Sofa-couch. Paging Dr. Grasshopper Sofa-couch." The baby's size was exactly where it should be - 8 weeks and 1 day. The printed picture sucked, though. Barely see anything. But watching the real time moving image on the monitor was pretty cool. The baby has a bigger head now and the heart pixels were moving at a healthy speed. This was at least encouraging as this baby has lasted longer than its predecessor. Carey's sickness is mellowing out. She's thrown-up a few times and gagged a lot and still thinks all meat stinks to high heaven. But she hasn't had to leave the room lately while I'm cooking.

Physical intimacy is at a bare minimum. Like once in the last month. But I feel like I've adjusted. Thanksgiving we had a go at it, but my uh...physicality refused to cooperate. It was psychological. Something about Carey's admitted fear to the doctor about damaging the baby through sex coupled with the delicacy of the fact that the previous pregnancy did not last very long just gummed up the works. We talked it out. I got frustrated, pouted, got mad, became embarrassed and then got over it and the next time (the only time) it worked like a charm! Carey has decided Judah is the best boy's name. Judah Samuel Wagler. It sounds a little Zionist to me. Like an extreme Israeli nationalist's name. I have a feeling she is scheming to relentlessly bring it up until I cave. Not this time. I still like Dean and I'm hoping it's a girl.

A co-worker friend of mine pointed something out about me recently. It seems like all my life I've been going against being a grown-up. Not adult. That's not what I'm saying. I love adult things (if you catch my drift). No I'm talking about being a grown-up. Oh, I'm still anti-grown up, don't get me wrong. But all the pressing down against societal norms has caught up to me. It turns out that in this year, 2009, I have become a full-fledged grown-up and barely even knew it was happening. I finished grad school two days ago from which I will embark on a career (a word I still shiver at). I will be part of a profession (a professional, they call them) and not the supportive staff for the first time in my life. A librarian. That sounds grown-up to me. Then, in October we bought a house. Mortgage definitely sounds grown up. And now you throw in the prospect of parenthood and damnnit! I am a grown up. No going back now. This, as they say, is the beginning of the end...of being cool. The best a parent can get in the eyes of their children is fleeting moments of cool, but then again, that is mostly ironic. I will try to not embarrass my teen-aged children, but nature makes all parents unequivocally uncool to their offspring. Bummer.

Name Game etc

2010-04-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

[November 23, 2009]

Since we already have a perfect name picked out for a girl, we've been throwing around boy names to see if we can agree on one. So far, no luck. Boy names are stupid or just played out or too predictable. Boy monikers are so ordinary and typically associated with an already established strong character, either hero or villain. Carey wore me down to have her dad's name be included if we have a male. So the middle name is Samuel and the last name is Wagler (her idea). It's the first name that's the challenge. Last time around I almost got her to agree to the name Dean. Dean Samuel Wagler which would be sweet except that his initials would be DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse). I had several epiphanies during one of these name game conversations and remembered a far out guy in elementary school named Cosmo. The last day of fourth grade he showed up to school with a full-on mohawk. That guy was awesome! I'm also partial to naming our boy Blue (not really, but Carey hates it so much I can't help but keep up the charade). Both names Carey absolutely despises. She's dropped Harrison and George a few times pretending like it was the first time she thought of them. I didn't buy it and I'm not a fan. It's a good thing we're having a girl.

Carey is still afflicted with the gift of superpower smell. Last night she had to hide upstairs while my jasmine rice cooked. Rice! How could she be bothered by the aroma of delicious rice? This is definitely a different side effect of her pregnancy. She's also lost her appetite and gets a little bit sick just about every day. We are hoping these are positive signs toward a healthy term.

The other night Carey told me that I love her more when she's pregnant. She thinks I'm more affectionate, or patient or whatever. I think it's just because she's really happy being pregnant. When she's in a pleasant mood and not focusing on what she thinks I should be doing at that very moment, then yes, maybe I am nicer. But then out of the other side of her mouth she hinted that I need to read up and be knowledgeable on all of the parenting styles. Being a hater of self-help type books, I declined. She pushed a little more accusing me of probably being a pushover if for instance our child throws a tantrum. Naturally I took umbrage and sarcastically thanked her for her vote of confidence. We're like 7 weeks in and she's already criticizing my untested parenting skills. In public I think I'll be pretty good about shutting down tantrums or taking the screaming child out of the environment for a few basic reasons. First off, I hate, hate, hate parents that ignore their shrilly, wale-of-the-banshee children. It is the bane of my otherwise lovely existence working at the public library. Secondly, I've got anxiety issues (panic attacks) that would force me to react quickly in a public scene. To keep myself from freaking out, I feel I would be practiced and on top of that situation. So there. It is true, however that I'm not by nature a disciplinarian. But that's because I am a rebel at heart. I'm anti the man. I'm more of an outlaw then a member of the law. Rules are for squares and so on. But I can play bad cop if need be. I'll just need some practice.

Carey's lack of appetite for food is unfortunately in balance with her appetite for the physical expression of love, if you know what I mean. Our sessions have dropped dramatically to once a week and now we are pushing beyond that which is very unusual in our 6 almost 7 year relationship. At this stage in the game the most exotic, kinky crazy sexual thing I can even imagine is me and Carey in a two-way. The one-way I've got down, rest assured. I'm ready for stage two pregnancy where Carey's libido is in fifth gear. We'll see how THAT goes for a change.

News and Stink

2010-04-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

[November 16, 2009]

First off, Carey got in trouble with me. She told both sets of parents in one day without consulting with me or offering for me to be there with the good news. She spilled her guts after dinner a few Sundays ago. I forgave her, but seriously thought about demanding reparation in the form of a sexual favor of my choosing. Her reason was that she needed support because it's a big question mark whether this one will take. It still would have been nice if she talked with me first... A week later she told me that she told her business partner too. I gave her a little bit of the bizness, but she's promised this is it unless I'm notified. From here on out.

The week after Group Death confirmed her most recent pregnancy, she got that weak, stomach pain thing where after work she just came home all bedridden craving mac and cheese. Yesterday the super sense of smell kicked in. And HARD. While she was out getting a pedicure, I made some white trash nachos. (that's canned chicken, cheese and tortilla chips) She came home and smelled the chicken and flipped. She ended up dry-heaving in the powder room about three different times. She ran out of the house and called me from the car asking me to turn on the kitchen fan and to light scented candles around the house. We needed grocery shopping done anyway. When she came home she asked me to put away the meat while she hid upstairs. I complied. No biggie.

Before dinner Carey suggested we do it...gently. She felt bad for me because it had been awhile. I concurred. And naturally I obliged. But during the dirty deed, I noticed she kept turning her head away from mine. Like dodging kisses or something. I asked if it was my breath. Nope. Turns out my skin, in general, stunk to her. Apparently the entirety of my epidermis gave off the aroma of musk (positive!) and vanilla (negative..). A combination that repulsed her. Huh. I wasn't sure what to do about that. But she had an idea. Her solution was to keep me on top and wrap me up tight in the blankets all the way up to my neck while I gave her the slow and naughty. Basically like how they show it on TV. Pregnancy, pregnancy what joys I have yet to discover?

Bullseye

2010-04-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

[November 5, 2009]

On one of these nights, October 20th or 21st or 22nd or 23rd, I impregnated Carey again.

Dr. Stupendous and Unsexy Sex

2010-04-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

[September 28, 2009]

What. A fucking. Joke. That sums up our visit to the OBGYN this morning. Pardon my French, but there's no other words for it. A colossal waste of time. Actually, it's worse than just wasting our time, it's more like stealing time that can never be returned. Theft, if you will. Burglary. We'll each die an hour before we were supposed to. Before I get into that, I must back up and describe the crappy morning even before the bullshit doctor's appointment.

When I wake up, I'm grumpy. Toxic, even. This morning was no exception. A bad pattern we have in our marriage is Carey getting up before me entirely wide awake ready to attack the day with vim and vigor and often this includes a list of urgent tasks for me to do. Some times it feels like she's barking orders at me before I am even half way conscious. So the first words out of her mouth this morning are about how we need to somehow get a hold of my parents on their cruise boat to get a bank statement showing that the gift check they gave us for our house down payment has cleared. (We got an email in the middle of the night from our loan officer requesting this.) So of course I reacted like the little morning jerk-baby that I am. I defensively grumbled something about how we'll just have to wait until they return, no, I doubt they do online banking nor does Wendy have access to their account. All reasonable answers, but through a cranky-pants manner. And Carey even stopped talking to me reminding both of us that I'm just cranky and useless until I'm thoroughly awake. Which actually made me feel better so I continued to get ready for the day as per usual in a sullen state keeping to myself. Turned on the ricer, put on some clothes, brushed teeth etc. While continuing to make my lunch and dinner for the long work day, Carey suggested we leave at 8:15am. And this was the gist of the argument. I didn't feel it was necessary to leave so early because I had stuff to do to get ready for my day. She wanted to leave early, I didn't. That's the argument at its central core. You follow me? The appointment was set at 8:30am at Group Health Women's Center which is literally 1/2 a block away. I had stuff to do before we left because following the Drs appointment we had to go straight to the inspection of our new house to-be, then to work. Under normal circumstances this argument would amount to casual bickering easily forgotten when the next thing catches our attention. Rarely we'll be pissed at each other granting almost full silent treatment when the other one has to leave for work and the conflict is unresolved between us. Worst case scenario, that is. But this time was different. Carey was PISSED! She was raging mad at me. Yelling and calling me an asshole. (not her typical fighting words) She screamed that I owed her an apology and that I was insensitive to her needs, her body and so on. She blew like a volcano, man. Carey had totally lost her temper. Half awake, cranky as usual, I didn't get what was going on at first. I couldn't see why she was so up set about nothing. But really, she was nervous about the findings from the MRI. We had been waiting for two months for this so we could finally learn what our options are for making babies. And she flipped! After shrieking one more time that I had better apologize to her, despite the certainty that I had done nothing wrong, I sincerely tried to say I was sorry for not thinking of her and tried to explain I was just trying to get my stuff together before we started our day. She didn't accept my apology and yelled, "YOU WERE ONLY THINKING OF YOURSELF! YOU WEREN'T THINKING ABOUT ME AT ALL. YOU WERE ONLY THINKING ABOUT YOUR RICE!" Which now that I write it down, it's quite funny. She then stormed by me up the stairs. I said something snarky about how I tried. I apologized. It's all I could do. I guess she had decided she was going to go early to the Doctor's without me. I figured this out when she stormed out of the front door and slammed it behind her. I put on my hoody, locked the door behind me and chased her down. We walked in silence. Her fuming silence, me just irritated silence. No talking at all. No looking at each other. You know the drill. Even in the waiting room. Not a word. The nurse came and took her away first as is their protocol. At the women's center they always do this for the safety of the female patient. They get her alone and ask if she's in any kind of danger. Which in our case is amusing in that if there ever were a domestic violence call and the police came to our house and the officer had to arrest and take one of us away, my bet is it would be Carey. But with her crazy anger at me, I began to wonder what she was telling the nurse. Carey was clearly out of her mind ticked off at me. What if she made something up and they hauled me away? At least I could miss work for a day... The nurse finally came out and led me to the room. Carey was sitting up on the table with the sternest angry face she could make. The nurse left and Carey ripped into me. "You know, you call yourself a feminist, but you don't care at all about me or my body. You're sexist and being a chauvinist!" And this was as sad as it was hilarious. I immediately stood up and walked over to comfort her. She really was talking crazy. I could tell that she had brewed up that little dig to try and hurt me, but it was just too ridiculous and so far off base about what was going on that I could tell she was seriously upset. Worried about this whole Bicornuate Uterus thing fearing she would be infertile or lose more pregnancies. Those were some of the weakest fighting words I've ever heard come out of her mouth. And that worried me. You see, my girl is wicked smaht! Her verbal repartee is usually sharp and can be deadly. But this... this was sub par by most anyone's standards. An indication of a truly sad state of affairs.

We have been waiting for this for two months since the miscarriage. An MRI was scheduled and then an appointment set to visit the OBGYN to go over the results. That's why we were there.

[October 26, 2009]

Okay. I got a little sidetracked and wasn't able to finish that last entry in a timely manner. We bought a house and moved into it.

Basically, here's what happened: this highly regarded OBGYN, let's call her, oh, I don't know, Dr. Stupendous, didn't know how to read an MRI, the very reason we were meeting with her. She started off the appointment with these platitudes about how "normal" is relative (referring to a normal uterus) and "what is normal, really?" and "If you walked into a kindergarten class, which one would be the normal one?" Thank God she brought it to our level, otherwise we would have had no idea about what normal is...because we're retarded. To follow her stupid analogy to the end conclusion, go into a kindergarten class and the kids with only one head - those are the normal ones. Carey has an abnormal shaped uterus. Also, the Doctor's computer screen showed in red letters the results of the MRI - ABNORMAL UTERUS. Bold red letters. Good thing we don't know how to read. When she finally got to the MRI photos on her computer, she could barely navigate the findings. She definitely could find Carey's anus. She pointed that out on just about every image. The last one Carey beat her to the punch - "Yeah, and that's my butthole..." We get it Dr. Stupendous. You know how to find the sphincter on the computer screen. How about the uterus? The good doctor tried to pull up the old ultra sound images on her computer, but for some reason she just couldn't work that goll-dang computron! Gee willikers! Those things are tricky! And she really tried to cover her tracks. After fumbling around with the images she made up this line about how the MRI is good for finding out if all the other organs around the uterus were healthy. Guess what? They were! And we already knew that from the goddamned ultra sound that was taken a month before. Dr. Stupendous complained that there wasn't a front image from the MRI. What? How could there not be a front shot? It's 360 degrees. Then she recommended what she called an "old fashioned" exam called an HSG that would shoot barium into Carey's hoo-hoo while they X-ray it flowing out of her Fallopian tubes to the ovaries. This was what Carey asked her primary care physician to do even before the MRI, but she was told the MRI would be much better. Nice. Another procedure. Swell. Then our 30 minutes were up and that was that. She escorted us out of the room telling us how truly sorry she was for our situation. Needless to say, we were enraged. Livid was the word I used and the one Carey appropriated from me when she screamed at anybody and everybody at Group Health. The next day Dr. Stupendous called up Carey and they had a little talk. Not much came out of it except that the doctor was sorry and that Carey's expectations of being able to see her uterus (It's so small!) were unreasonable. Dr. Stupendous was so wrong. Wrong all over the place. Read on.

Carey had the HSG on the 15th. The bad news first. The HSG that Dr. Stupendous recommended didn't show squat. Surprise, surprise. The new radiologist, who fortunately was cool to Carey, explained that the HSG was good for determining the condition of the Fallopian tubes and ovaries, but not really the uterus. NOT THE UTERUS! (I can't even think of a long enough, angry enough, or dirty enough string of swear words to input here, so I'll just move on...) Another stupid waste of time. Stupid, stupid Doctor Stupid-ness. HOWEVER! The good news is that the radiologist offered to bring up Carey's MRI to go over it with her. Turns out the radiologist knew how to read an MRI and voila! There it was. A uterus shaped like a freaky Y heart. This was all Carey wanted. To see the severity of her bicornuate uterus. And it's severe. Carey demanded to get a second opinion from outside of GHC (which we'll be going to tomorrow) at a fertility clinic with a doctor who specializes in abnormal uteri. We've decided to drop Group Health and switch to Aetna next year.

In other news, we've had the keys to our new place for a week now. We checked the menstrual calendar we got going and Carey was supposed to be ovulating last week. So we did it 4 nights in a row and we'll see what happens. Night three was pretty hilarious, if you can appreciate how boring focused procreation is. We were exhausted from moving that day. Not so sexy. More procedural and mechanical then hot. It was on the excitement level of requesting salt during dinner. "Darling, could you pass me the salt?" "Of course, my love." Bam. Sperm deposited.

Annoyed Radiologists

2010-04-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

[September 10, 2009]

So Carey had an MRI (that's Magnetic Resonance Imaging, for those of us who didn't already know) on 9/1. For a thorough gander at her hidden and abnormal lady parts. To see what the dealio is with the double uteri. She asked me to tag along for support, so I did. Fortunately I had the day off due to the forced unpaid vacation library furlough. Once we got to radiology (a creepy underground laboratory) we both had to fill out forms in order to be eligible for the MRI (Carey) or to just be in the room during the procedure (me). Apparently the magnetic field in the MRI room is a force to be reckoned with. You pretty much had to swear that you were in perfect health, well, at least physically. Psychologically speaking...I'll get to that in a minute. So we signed our lives away. Then the radiologist told us what could go with us into the room and what had to stay behind. Belt, zippered hoody, watch, jewelry and even credit/debit cards (because they could get demagnetized) all had to stay. Then the technician walked us into the room. Surrounding the big white plastic box that was the MRI was a room, stark white-white like something out of THX 1138, a fragment of a sterile future dystopia. I was offered a seat, a folding chair about 5 feet away from the sterile beast. Carey had to climb up on a gurney. The radiologist wrapped her in warm towels, then a rib-like rack and then strapped her all cocooned up to the gurney. Feet and chest all strapped in. Carey was told to not move her feet once inside the MRI machine(?). The technician gave us each a set of ear plugs because the scanning gets really loud. For Carey they also gave her headphones with KEXP piped in. Then they pushed the button and the gurney very slowly moved into the shallow cave in the center of the enormous machine. Seriously large. Like 20 x 20 x 20. Then as the radiologists sealed the door they told me it was a good thing I brought something to read because this was going to take awhile. Also, they cautioned if I needed to get close to the machine to take my glasses off. Magnetic field and all, remember? Carey minds well have been 50 miles away from me. She was so wrapped up tight. Restrained. Constrained. Trapped. I started to grow anxious. Like seriously anxious. Like panic-attach anxious. I tried to talk myself down rationalizing that I could be stuck in a room for 30 minutes no problem. But the noise was getting to me. And the sight of Carey was making me extremely claustrophobic. I began to feel the straps around my own body tying me down. Helpless. I had to do something. So I knocked on the control window for the radiologist to stop everything, unseal the door and let me ask them a quick question. I asked if once this thing started if I needed to leave would I be able to. They said no. Ok. Just checkin'. So I sat back down while they resealed the door and started up the MRI again. But I couldn't take it. I couldn't calm down. It was fight or flight and I had nothing to fight with or against. My heart was a mass of hot energy and my brain was being constricted to the point of madness. I knocked on the control window again for them to stop the machine, unseal the door and let me out again. Naturally they were annoyed. I asked if I could stand behind them and look through the control window. They said no. Defeated, I walked down the hall to the waiting room. Some big help I was. I started to imagine Carey freaking out (like I would), opening her eyes looking to me for support and finding a big fat empty chair. I feared she'd be really upset. 40 minutes later she entered the waiting room hair messy and eyes half open. I stood up bracing myself for a tongue-lashing. But then I noticed her hair was all disheveled. Her eyes were barely open and she had a dreamy look on her face. Carey slept through the whole thing! And the radiologists were able to talk to her through the headphones telling her right when I left the room. I was just relieved that she wasn't mad. Of course Carey fell asleep. That's so like her. If I, on the other hand, had to get an MRI, I would need heavy sedation. Add claustrophobia to the list.

Emotional Feelings

2010-04-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

[August 13, 2009 (36 years old)]

Man, that looks old when I write it down. Thirty-six. There. That looks better. Words not numbers. Carey keeps checking in with me about my feelings. It's nice of her and probably necessary, but it's also kind of annoying. I had lunch with Chad and gave him the play by play. And I realized that I kind of just gave facts, mostly. Some commentary, opinion, but not much on my feeeeelings. Sunday I had phone conversations with all the Wagler contingencies. Wayne was first in the afternoon. Mom and dad then Wendy back to back around the 8-9 o'clock hours. Everyone was really compassionate. I confessed to Wayne (without meanint to) about how I really wanted this baby. I was surprised at how much I'd already grown attached to the idea of getting my own kid. Whenever someone talks about fatherhood, it makes me want to puke. Fatherhood. Sounds stupid. My brother did say he thought I'd be a good father. My own dad has said that before. It's not like I'm going to get a book on the subject. I don't really think in those terms. Like, "How would I be as a father?" Not my style. That's not how I mentally role, see. I think more about what I want to do. Like a lot of reading out loud to the child. Teach them some auto mechanics and how to hate professional sports. While Carey was still pregnant I read Dr. Doolittle at nights in bed to her and our embryo. Then half way through Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. My reasons were intellectual and to familiarize el bambino with my voice. I want a smart kid. And I don't want her to wear boring, dumb clothes.

For me, the loss began when Dr. O finally pronounced that there was no heartbeat. Seeing the expelled non-viable pregnancy, a floating mess in the toilet put the final nail in the coffin. At the library I've been slightly upset seeing little kids all alive walking around, eyes blinking holding their mom or dad's hand. That hurts a little, I suppose. Carey's parents are pretty intense about the whole thing. Which I understand being their lost shot at grandparenthood. Sam talked to me. Said he loved me. We got flowers from the Goldenbergs on Saturday. Funny. Both Carey and I said at different times unbeknownst to each other that the flowers were kind of macabre - a dark purple. Probably on purpose, no? Monday they sent us an oak tree to plant. Where we are supposed to put it, I don't know. The card was sad saying something about being in memory of our blueberry baby.

Black Weekend Part II

2010-04-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

[August 11. 2009]

Before leaving Group Health to go home and have a miscarriage we had an uncomfortable interaction with a pharmacist. Just to add insult to injury, if you will. Salt in the cut. Lemon juice in the open wound.The RX order for vicodin for some reason didn't beat us to the pharmacy. The guy there couldn't find it. He finally did and asked Carey if she'd taken it before. No, she hadn't. So he had to give us the spiel because it's a narcotic. Makes you sleepy, don't drive any machinery, don't drink while on it blah, blah, blah. But then he looked at Carey and was unsure about the dosage. The bottle itself said take 1-2 every 4-6 hours. This pharmacist suggested maybe only one or half even. Then he asked her uncomfortable question number one. "How much do you weigh?" Now, I get why he asked it. I understand that if she weighted two-ten, then the drug would have less of an effect and a higher dosage would be necessary. But we weren't thinking clearly about why he asked. When not expecting a question like that, caught off guard, the socially responsible instinct is to answer and answer truthfully. Especially in a Dr.'s office/hospital/clinic/pharmacy, right? So she did. Based on her response he decided a 1/2 a pill would be just fine. But then he reconsidered again and asked uncomfortable question number two, "What are you taking this for?" Carey faltered and quietly answered, "For a miscarriage." "Oh." he replied. "Go ahead and take a whole one." As we walked away Carey muttered through teary eyes, "That was awkward." That insensitive fuck! So much for patient privacy. Anything else you wanna know, ass-face? Haunting family secrets? How about the intimate details of our sex lives? Stupid prick.

So Friday night, dark Friday, we stayed in and waited. Carey inserted three pills into herself, had some dinner, dropped a vicodin and we watched our DVD. Three hours later, nothing was happening. She couldn't feel any reactions from the drugs so she popped another vicodin and fell asleep on the couch. At about 11 I was ready to go to bed. So I woke her to join me. That's when the pain began. The next hour and a half was excruciating. Unbearable cramps followed by the evacuation of small crooked strings of blood. It felt like it would never end. She would be in the bed writhing around holding her stomach trying to find a comfortable position. (Or at least a less painful one.) Then she'd go back to the bathroom. She would sit and push and we'd wait for more to leave her body. Always tiny amounts were expunged not even close in comparison to the amount of pain. She was suffering greatly and there was nothing I could do but rub her back while kneeling on the noticeably dirty bath mat. She got to the point where she could only swear over and over and over again rocking on the bed, holding her stomach. The pain was so intense that she threw up on top of the floating blood and clots. A hot washcloth on her stomach seemed to help a little. I burnt my hands warming and rewarming the washcloth. Towards the end, she passed it, we were pretty sure. Pretty sure we saw it. Tiny bloody tissue with a curve, maybe a once forming vertebrae. I remember thinking in complete sentences like, "I can't handle this. I am not able to handle this," and "I don't ever want to do this again. Nothing is worth this." Carey cried on and off not only from the physical pain, but also the loss. She let out fathom deep sobs. Unimaginable sorrowful crying. This was misery. This was loss. This was death. She wanted this baby so bad. I couldn't believe it was happening to us... At midnight Carey called her mom Mary Kay (3am her time). Mary Kay suggested she do the breathing like she was in labor. After Carey hung up to go back to the bathroom she called us right back. I picked up and she added that I should breathe with her. Which I did even though I felt like a fool. By then the washcloth thing wasn't working much anymore. Carey insisted I call Dan to borrow his heating pad. I didn't want to, but I finally did. I texted him and Toby hoping they were still awake. Dan called from Toby's phone saying he'd bring the pad right over. He must have ran because it didn't take long. When he rang the doorbell, for a second I thought about throwing on a robe as I know I look ridiculous in my pajama suit (black long johns and a t shirt and sox). I ran down stairs to get the pad. I thanked him. He didn't let me go without a hug. I don't remember what he said, but it was nice. I brought the pad upstairs, plugged it in and Carey and I commenced on another suggestion from Mary Kay, marching around doing the stupid breathing thing. It really did help some. Also, by 12:30 we believed the remainder of it had been evacuated. Carey fell asleep with the hot pad wrapped around her stomach. I fell asleep and had a stupid Hallmark card dream.

It was quite unlike the dream Carey had Thursday night before we knew for sure. In her dream, she pulled out a full fetus from herself and showed it to me. Prophetic, as it turns out and completely free of mystery. My dream, there was something, a bird/book amalgam flying in place in front of me. The flapping wings outspread from the binding. After a moment it turned to reveal it was two dimensional only showing a black horizontal line in the sky. Then from the line a giant burst of fluttering birds, an upward V of rising doves. In the dream, the awe was so intense that I fell to my knees. (Wow, that sounds cheesy. The dream felt beautiful while I was in it, but explaining in words is all kinds of embarrassing.) The flock flew straight up into the sky into a rough square hole in the clouds exposing bare sky where bright streams of sunlight fell. It sounds like bad writing. Like something from the Lifetime network. I'm disappointed that this is the "meaningful" dream that my mind up with. Such obvious symbolism. Stupid brain.

Saturday morning I woke up with extreme stomach pain and nausea. I reasoned that my food surely had digested by that point. So what was going on? My last meal was like 10 hours previous. I scanned my memory for the list of ingredients to make sure there was no gluten. It hurt really bad. Then it got worse. I ran to the bathroom and puked out my gut fluids. Nothing but bile. My throat stung from the toxic mess. My stomach started a wave of rising and settling pain. I contemplated not going to work trying to fall back asleep. Carey suggested I go to get my mind off of things. Dan already promised to come over to be with her while I worked. Oh, and I also had the rhea. Acid blasts. We walked over to Safeway to get ginger ale for my upset stomach and orange juice for Carey. I had two bottles of cold ginger ale in my arms because they were too cold for my hands (which if you'll remember went through the heat wringer the night before with the hot washcloth action). I must have looked like I was hurtin' for the needle stumbling around like that. I dropped a bottle and it shattered spilling ginger ale everywhere on the floor in the produce section. The cute chick employee just gave me the look like "whatever" after I apologized. I was a wreck, but I still drove to work. One block from the house I actually turned the car around because my stomach hurt so bad, but I doubled back and tried to tough it out. I made it an hour and a half at work before I puked up my banana and ginger ale in the staff only bathroom. I felt better for a few seconds right after I hurled. But that did it. I called my boss at the Magnolia branch and explained that I just launched my breakfast and I needed to go home. He sounded a little perturbed, but relented anyway. I told the librarian on duty and took off in the car. When I got home I checked on Carey reclining on the living room couch and then went to the bedroom hoping to get some sleep. No luck. I was in bed for a couple of hours, but couldn't sleep. Dan had come over, I heard. Carey came up and encouraged me to come down and talk it out. I felt nasty with a cramped stomach though, and stayed put. I didn't want to see anyone anyway. A little while later Dan brought up a dry piece of gluten-free toast. I ate it slowly counting how many times I chewed each bite. That way, the food would be mashed up, mostly dissolved before it hit my weakling stomach. I decided 50 chews would be good, but I made it to around 100 times on several bites. I finally came down stairs. Jennifer was there too. And we hung out. Becky showed up a little later. We just talked in our living room. I slumped in one of our chairs occasionally laughing at whatever funny comment my friends made. It momentarily relieved the pain. Stupid pain.

Carey came to the conclusion that my sickness was my body's reaction to the horror of what I had witnessed the night before. Made me think of in the movies when after someone witnesses a murder or kills someone for the first time or finds a dead body they throw up. Carey told our friends and our families that I was strong during the ordeal. I am not strong. I may have acted strong. But my body is weak. I cannot cry. I got teary eyed a few times, but I am not really able to completely let go of control. So I smothered the hurt and stuffed it down in my digestive system until it couldn't handle it anymore and burst out of both ends of my body. I didn't have a fever. There's really no other explanation. I admitted to Carey that I felt guilty for being sick when I should have been taking care of her. She even got me some Pepto Bismol and Tums. They didn't help, but it was a nice gesture. I could barely down water. Anything entering my stomach immediately turned to hurt. Even the stupid Pepto gave me heartburn. The whole day my stomach writhed. Her pain had subsided into a constant dull cramp. The vicodin sort of helped her. At one point when all our friends were over, Carey looked pail. In pain. She realized her discomfort, took another pill, and sunk back into the couch.

Black Weekend Part I

2010-03-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

[August 10, 2009]

Carey was pregnant for two months. It's over now. Thursday, August 6th our plan for dinner was that after work I'd go to Whole Foods, pick up a rotisserie chicken, then swing by and pick up Carey from the All-Star Fitness. As I was leaving the library she called me. In a panicked tone she explained there was blood. I didn't worry, though. We read in one of those books that this is pretty common in the first trimester. When I picked her up she was on her cell with the midwife. Because Carey wasn't cramping, the midwife encouraged us to monitor, but not to worry too much. Carey broke down crying. I tried to assure her (from my expertise gathered from lightly browsing maybe two books on pregnancy) explaining that this commonly occurred and had little to no bearing on the health of the pregnancy. She was just scared is all. We carefully drove the scooter home. I dropped her off, scooted back downtown to Whole Foods to get dinner (she wanted mac & cheese, her comfort food) and then a special stop at Dick's because she also wanted a cheeseburger. The bleeding continued through the evening. Around midnight Carey called the consulting nurse who promised we'd get a call back from the midwife on duty pronto. The midwife never called that night so we went to bed. The next morning there was a lot more blood. Some clots and brown trails of blood must have pooled overnight. It all came out at once. Carey called the consulting nurse again and then we finally got that call from the midwife who didn't call the night before because she thought is was too late (!). A plan was proposed. Two blood tests. One on Friday, one two days later on Sunday to compare hormone levels. If more hormones (a higher number?) where found in Sunday's blood test, good. If not, bad. Carey would have to sit around the house, no doubt worrying up a storm until Monday to actually find out the results. Mary Kay suggested she have me learn the meaning of fetch (not helpful). But then she also recommended Carey ask for another ultrasound for a quicker answer (helpful). And they got us in that day. I marveled at the technology and efficiency and even willingness of the HMO to help us out like that. So we got an ultrasound from a midwife.

During the ordeal, the midwife was mostly quiet or would keep saying that her ultrasound skills were not that great. Not something I wanted to hear. I also didn't want to hear the midwife say she was 99% sure Carey's body had already begun the process of expelling the non-viable pregnancy. But again with the "my ultra sound skills are not that great" caveat. So while we sat in the waiting room across from a happy and very pregnant couple, Carey all teary-eyed crying and me run down and defeated, the midwife called Radiology to see if we could come in ASAP and get an abdominal ultra sound ("for a much more clearer picture" she told us). On our walk from the midwifery building to radiology we began the process of giving up. Accepting the failure and loss. Carey, with dark humor, decided we should call the embryo Alice because I had been reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at night to her and the once future baby. Then she thought better of it and suggested we call it Cheshire Cat because first it was there, and then it disappeared. We mocked the miscarriage pamphlet the midwife gave us while waiting to get the ultrasound. It was filled with trite quotes from grieving mothers anonymously signed by the likes of "mom from Ohio". There was even a whole page and a 1/5 for fathers! The midwife warned us that radiology closed at 5, but would try and squeeze us in, see if they would stay a little late even. We felt that pressure right away when the middle-aged guy with the Moe from the Three Stooges haircut hurried us down the hall to the ultrasound room. We arrived at the dim room at 4:45pm. It was Friday and this guy's week was probably juuuust about over. And boy he was fast with the ultrasound machine! Snappin' pictures from every angle possible at a furious pace. Dodging our questions right and left reminding us that he was not a doctor. But then at one point he paused for a second asking Carey if she'd ever had a pap smear. Odd question. Of course she had and she told him that. "Did you know you have two Uteruses?" He showed us on the monitor. If he hadn't of pointed it out, we'd have never known. The screen was just snowy TV static grays. But then he outlined it for us. Kind of like a misshapen heart split down the middle and pulled halfway apart. Two sides. Two Uteri. This would take longer than he'd hoped. He took Carey to the bathroom...and you know what? I don't know what happened in that bathroom. I forgot to ask. Anyway, he came back and set up the room for another ultra sound. This time vaginal. Then he had Carey undress and get up on the table again but now propped up with a paper towel over her naked lower half. She was gonna undress right there, but he insisted that he leave first. He fetched a doctor to check out the scene. Dr. O, she called herself. And she didn't know anything that was going on. She walked in all cheerful announcing, "Are you guys ready to find some good news (meaning the baby)?" But we quickly explained this was just a confirmation of a dead end. In an instant her face morphed like those theater masks from comedy to drama. The radiologist had Carey insert the ultrasound wand into herself. And several times after he moved it around, Carey groaned in pain. He apologized and you could tell he hated doing this, but he kept hurting her. Now he was perspiring. Light bounced off his wet forehead. He was afraid to look under the sheet or even be near her privates. We thought it was kind of funny. His awkwardness, that is. Dr. O tried to explain the Uterus Didelphys to us. She said it was rare, but not unheard of. She recommended we get an MRI to map out the crazy freak show that are Carey's reproductive organs. Both the radiologist and the Dr. said that Carey's ovaries were good, at least. In all this hooplah of the carnival sideshow uterus, we still hadn't gotten a straight answer about our embryo. Finally Dr. O said it. There's no heart beat. And that's when it really sunk in like a knife to the chest. It's over. Carey was right from the start.

After Carey got dressed we walked back to midwifery. Fortunately, the same midwife was still there. She took us in another room and we talked it out. The double uterus was kind of a good thing to focus on, get our minds off the current bad situation, though both Dr. O and the midwife explained that the didelphys probably was not the cause for the miscarriage. The midwife offered Carey some pills that would expedite the process of the otherwise spontaneous abortion. They go inside her, dissolve, and within 1 to 6 hours her body will start contractions and flush out the non-viable pregnancy. She warned us there would be cramps, then blood and everything would come out and then the pain would subside. She said it very straight forward like that. First this, then that, followed by this, the end. Like it was a calisthenics plan. Do ten push-ups, twenty sit-ups...you get the idea. The midwife did do a good job of explaining that Carey's body needed to get rid of this pregnancy because something was terribly wrong. She went over that guilt is a typical response, but there was nothing that we could have done to prevent this and that it's a good thing. We understood that. She talked about the difference between understanding this intellectually and the emotions of loss involved. As we left to rent a video (The State: Season 1 & 2) I said out loud that I thought I'd never hear myself saying, "Oh, no thanks. We won't be able to go out. We're going to stay in tonight and have a miscarriage."

Nicknames for Grandparents

2010-03-22T18:59:00.000-07:00

[August 1, 2009]

While I was away having the time of my life at Camp Cote in NH (see picture below), Carey had her first visit with a midwife (July 24). She felt that she couldn't do it alone so she confided in Jennifer C who gladly went along with her. They did an ultrasound and the little seed-baby turned up with a visible, though not audible, heartbeat. This is good, she was informed. With the sighting of a heartbeat the chances of miscarriage go down from 20-25% to 3%! I learned all this from a photo-text and a phone call to the land line at Camp Cote. I had to speak in code so I couldn't ask too many details as there were ears all around without prior knowledge to the pregnancy. Luckily, Dan & Toby already knew so I could share the news with them. Show off my text image of the blurry little thing. A few days later in Connecticut we told Carey's parents during dinner at a restaurant. Carey and I got there early and scotch taped ultrasound photos to the inside of a few menus for Sam and Mary Kay. We got the hostess in on our scheme. She agreed to hand only them the specialized menus. For the longest time they didn't open their menus. It drove Carey and I mad! They just kept looking at the specials and wine list and just about anything else but their own damn menus! Finally Mary Kay opened hers and found the photo.

"What's this? Does anyone else have a picture of an ultrasound in their menu?" She seriously said that. Carey had written "Coming March 17"on the bottom, but it still didn't click.

Carey couldn't keep it in any longer. She interjected, "It's mine!"

"I KNEW IT!" Mary Kay was sure she already knew even though she had tested Carey the night before by offering her a drink of wine. (Carey took the drink, but she dumped it in the sink when no one was looking and took fake sips when she hoped people were looking.) Sam seemed more in shock than anything else. His response wasn't what I had expected. Ryan's was exactly how I guessed. Similar to how my reaction would have been if I were in his shoes (both of us being the youngest and all). Like I know I'm supposed to feel something, that it's a big deal and all but, I just don't resonate with it... But after thinking about it, Ryan decided he wanted to be the child's godfather. Not that he's religious. He just likes the sound of it. The prestige he envisions that comes along with the title a la Coppola's The Godfather films. Piyush was very happy and even verbalized his excitement in a much more watered down Indian accent then last time we saw him.

The next day for brunch with David and Nancy we came up with a semi-clever way to tell them. The good news, bad news routine. First the bad news, we won't be able to attend Carey's cousin Lindsey's wedding in March because of the good news - and here Carey pulled out the ultrasound photo. David was hysterical with hugs and handshakes and enthusiasm while Nancy said the same exact thing as Mary Kay, "I KNEW IT!" By which she meant that no, she didn't actually know until Carey reached for something in her purse...the ultrasound pic. I found it odd that both mothers said they knew it when they actually didn't. At any rate, the rest of the conversation was moderated by Nancy because this is her education, occupation, specialty and central life focus, pregnancy and birthing. Turns out she knows a lot. And she knows how to clearly communicate to first-timers. It only took a day before the Goldenbergs picked out their grandparent names for themselves. Sam wants to be called Poppee and Mary Kay...shoot, what is it? Something Irishy. Mah-moo? Moh-mee? Don't remember. I can't decide what I want to be called. Dad is pretty good. But pops might be fun. Not pappa, though. Well, maybe. Daddy sounds weird to me.

We found out from the midwife/ultrasound that the original date given is off by a few weeks. So at this point we are in the 8th week for the second time.

Flashback. The night before I flew to Camp Cote Carey was an emotional wreck. She was super negative, argumentative, and just in a nasty foul mood while also dreading being alone at home without me. After she dropped me off at the airport, I got a call a few minutes later. She needed talking down and believed she was having a panic attack. I don't remember what I said, but it seemed to work. The next morning she found out that she had a UTI and got some antibiotics. But then a week later the lab results were negative and she didn't have a UTI afterall. This worried her greatly. Her moods and body at odds with each other and her typical grounded self. The night she got home from CT (I flew home first), she had talked herself into a frenzy that these abdominal pains that she thought were a UTI must be something worse and she concluded that she was for sure going to have a miscarriage. This freaked me out. She was so dark and hopeless and emphatic and coercive, I started to despair. Then I thought about it and reminded her about the 3% stat we had just learned. Ultrasound heartbeat = drop in miscarriage rate from 20-25% to 3%. She calmed down. I calmed down. And since it was the hottest day in Seattle's recorded history (103 degrees! Unbearable!) we took our first ride on Link, the the new light rail, to an air conditioned theater to watch Bruno with Dan & Toby (it was so-so...not anywhere as good as Borat). Today she woke up early completely exhilarated. On a whim she drove all the way to Carnation to pick berries. Then she got bad news about her father being in the hospital and got really depressed. Crying, upset with friends for being flaky. Of course I can't say that I suspect she's having pregnancy moodiness. I'd get in trouble. But she does seem a little oversensitive.

Speaking of sensitivity, lovey time is quite low. "Mild" is putting it mildly. Her libido is nil. I'm not just talking about infrequency (two times in two weeks), but also boring or like she's just doing me a favor. A favor I gladly take, mind you. But this insufferable cold is keeping affection between us at bay. I was told I have to wait until the third trimester to get the other end of the spectrum, if you know what I mean.

Badminton at Camp Cote 2009 (I'm the one with my legs
all ready for action!)

Doubts and Schemes and Plans

2010-03-15T08:37:00.001-07:00

[July 9, 2009]

In the last eight days Carey has not felt pregnant. "I don't feel pregnant," she tells me over and over. She's starting to show more signs of hyperactivity. Manic, excitable behavior. She convinced herself that her pregnancy had somehow disappeared. She bothered me to walk to Walgreen's with her to purchase another pregnancy test, talking a mile a minute the whole way there (it's that meth-like behavior again). At that point she had already tested positive twice - one home test and one from the doctor. The new test proved positive, of course. That was number three. This kept her confident until yesterday morning when she secretly urinated on another stick confessing to me later about it. Still pregnant. That's four tests so far. So much for trusting pee.

The secret is probably the most difficult thing about the whole deal (for me anyway). Saturday we attended Jennifer and Jeremy's wedding. Carey had some anxiety about the drinking. We didn't want to get found out just yet. It would look suspicious if she wasn't drinking at a wedding, right? So we hatched a little scheme. When the time came, I would offer her a drink and make sure everyone at our table heard me and then saw me return with a glass of wine. "Care. Can I get you a drink? Wine? Okay, I'll go get you a glass of wine. I'm going now to get you a glass of wine that has alcohol in it that you can drink." Not very slick, actually. Then she would bring the wine to her lips a few times and/or take the drink with her to the bathroom and dump some of it out. She over-did the fake drinking a bit (similar to my overacting about getting her a drink). I brought a few gluten-free beers for myself. She asked to try one (fake-try one for show). She brought it up to her lips too fast and the carbonation made a mini-explosion spraying all over her face which she quickly dried off. Still, no one seemed to notice. Even during the toasts. If we have to do it again, we should sneak in some sparkling cider as a decoy and just do away with all this tom foolery bad acting.

Last Friday marked 5 weeks. We took a picture of her from the side. Not much difference. Tomorrow week 6 begins. I've been trying to read to the baby cells every night since week five. Dr. Doolittle is the first book. Carey likes it, though she falls asleep almost immediately after I begin reading. I have to catch her up each night before I begin a new chapter. Which, naturally, irritates me to no end.

We began making plans for telling our fams. I canceled the Manchester (New Hampshire) to Newark (New Jersey) leg of my flight back from Camp Cote. Carey talked Ryan into driving to NH to pick me up on Monday, July 27. Piyush is in town from India so we'll get to tell that whole clan of her family maybe over dinner Monday night. I imagine Sam will be the most thrilled about the whole ordeal. We haven't figured out how to tell the Nancy side yet. Maybe lunch on Tuesday in New Haven. For my family, we're probably going tell them on Labor Day weekend in Portland - my parents and Wendy and Paul. Not sure about the Wayne-O group. I personally haven't told a single soul. It's good to talk about it with Carey a lot. To pacify the urge to blab about the new person on the way.

New Craziness on the Way

2010-03-08T08:28:00.000-08:00

[July 1, 2009]

Last night the first signs of weirdness arrived. I got home from work after 8 and I found Carey reclined on the couch with my Macbook near her face. Nexulous or whatever that Facebook scrabble game is called appeared on the screen. She apologized for not having dinner ready and complained of strange sensations in her lower abdomen. Not cramps, but just an unusual discomfort. Naturally, as to be expected, I beat her for not having my dinner ready for me hot and on the table as soon as I got home... She looked lethargic. I prepped for dinner (microwaved) while she tried to get her mind off her pain by video chatting with Dan & Toby. She pulled up her shirt and flashed them. A few times, actually. She took it a little too far, in my opinion. Kind of like drunk behavior. We ate dinner on the couch because she only felt comfortable lying down. After dinner she passed out on the couch while I watched the early 80's classic TV show Square Pegs (thoroughly disappointing). The next day she made me aware that in the morning her bowel movements are of monster proportions. Consistently. I guess I needed that information...for what, though I don't know. These mood alterations continued. She's been sometimes acting sullen, depressed, quiet and not moving around so much and then to the other extreme. Yesterday morning she frantically ran around the house yelling at the printer/copier for being too slow. As if she had smoked some crystal meth and became angry at the slow pace of the world in comparison to her racing, stressed out mind. Even this morning she seemed distant, slow, not really her perky self. She admitted to being worried about losing the baby cells (as we prefer to call the pregnancy right now). The day before she lifted some chains at Home Depot (for her work) and feared that this might have dislodged the egg from its attachment to the uterus. I tried to calm her with the knowledge that at this point, the growing baby cells are tiny like an orange seed (actually just repeating back to her what she'd explained to me earlier).

Carey told Josie the news because she needed to tell someone. Other than that we are keeping the pregnancy on the down low.

Sunday night we watched the documentary The Business of Being Born. I freaked out. Sunday nights are not a good time to be introducing new and really intense pieces of information. I'm worn out from the week and weekend by then. The footage of natural birth showed women in equal parts terror and euphoria. The pain and impossibility, the suffering of child birth these women shared. Yikes! is an understatement. However, the Oxytocin rush seemed to compensate for the long, long horror of labor pains. Still, I don't know how they handle that for 12 to 24 to 36 hours. I realized how unnecessary men are in pregnancy and birth. As a dude you deliver your seed and then you are done. Deposit the goods and then become the sole changer of the cat litter. The film made me think about the future of sexes. From an evolutionary perspective, perhaps the male sex will not be needed if females can produce sperm (I think I heard that they already can? Scientists in England or something?). At any rate, the movie was eye-opening. I especially liked the expose of crooked hospitals, intervening and impatient doctors, the corrupt AMA, and the blind ignorance of America in regards to midwifery especially in comparison with the rest of the world. I used to be under the false assumption that midwives were all hippy-dippy crap. And it's true that the hippy communes practiced midwifery but only as mimicked from immigrant culture i.e societies that have been around much longer the the good ol' US of A. Turns out most of the world accepts midwifery as a viable option. So we're going natural. I'm down with that, but I'm not looking forward to labor.

New Person on the Way

2010-03-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

[June 25, 2009 am]

Carey woke me up on purpose this morning. Usually it's by accident, or so she tells me. She is notorious for making a bunch of noise in the morning: her business cell phone will ring and/or she'll yell at somebody (usually a health insurance company rep) for their incompetence or she'll forget I'm sound asleep on my side of the bed and sit on my legs in order to pull her pants on. I've actually made peace with this inconsiderate behavior. It took five years to get to this point, mind you. But this morning while I was sound asleep she stuck a white plastic stick right in my face. My reaction of course was alarm followed by frightened hostility. After my eyes adjusted, I saw that the first response pregnancy test had a little LCD screen that said "yes+". After I was awake enough to understand what was going on I knew exactly what to do and did the right thing. I thoroughly dismissed it.

"It's like what, only 58% accurate?"

"No, that's how many people have the pregnancy hormone in their urine."

Urine. Do I really trust what pee has to say? The answer is no. It reminds me of those "doctors" of yore who ripped open a chicken and predicted people's future based on the splayed arrangement of the intestines. Carey believes in pee, however. And as an excellent example of how she roles, she emailed her physician, set up a pregnancy test at the doctors and 15 minutes later called me from there to see if I wanted to wait with her for the results. I was in the shower when she rang and then texted. We thought they'd take a blood test, a more reliable source of information, I thought. But nope. Turns out doctors believe in the mystical messages prophesied by pee. Carey came home with a piece of paper and a huge smile. The paper read, "Your pregnancy test results are positive. This means that you are pregnant." I knew it! I told her this would be no sweat. I explained that she's as fertile as they come and I'm super virile, so... And all that doubt about how my junk might not work? Ha! I'm a fucking champ! Literally. And I'm convinced I know when ____* was conceived.

Carey was fuzzy on the start and end date of her menstruation. She kept saying she has a 32 day cycle or whatever. So I guess there's a five day window when ovulation occurs and insemination is possible? To increase our chances, we hit it 12 days consecutively. Well, two days in there we rested...to heal. Two of the times ended up being a lot of work including minor unwanted hurting and difficulty (but success!) making it to the pop. Other than that it was very enjoyable. The last day of the marathon was a Sunday. The Glasses had just played a rockin' show at the Fremont Festival (summer solstice). That afternoon we did the massage and make love action without being in a hurry. The slow ride, if you will. It was hot. However, that wasn't the time I think it happened. That same night, after an hour of being asleep I half woke up in the throes of aggro sex. Usually this happens when it's, ahem, been awhile. The following morning I figured maybe it was her pheromones enticing me subconsciously in the middle of the night to impregnate her.

I must say I'm surprised at how thrilled I was at the news this morning. While eating breakfast and making my lunch I put on a few happy summer tunes that I'd been listening to on repeat as of late. Cortney Tidwell's "Don't Let the Stars..." dance club remix followed by Shiny Toy Guns car commercial cover of "Major Tom". Then I put on The Nightgowns "Animal Sounds".

I'm trying to not be too excited in light of the fact that this is so early in the pregnancy. It might not stick. But I'm hopeful even though I know better. My experience is that hope is just a set up for devastating disappointment. Still, that's in the back of my mind. It's pretty cool.

Michael Jackson died today at the age of 50.

*super secret name that under light of the current situation cannot be revealed...