Drumming my fingers

These last few days have seemed like walking through waist-high water. It feels like I'm expending a lot of energy to get nowhere.

I've finally purchased some furniture for Thing 2's room, dragged a metric ton of clothes to the Goodwill donation station and procured a gift for the little miss from her new baby brother -- a Mickey and Minnie Mouse watch that plays "You Are My Sunshine."

She and I have finished making a "memory book" for her beloved babysitter, whose last week coincides with the baby's arrival. I've even cleaned the house (and re-cleaned the house) whenever anyone steps foot on the floor.

But since the scary, last-minute news of the potential for health problems, not to mention Down syndrome, I've been feeling as if things are in a state of Limbo. (Too bad Limbo's been scrubbed from dogma ... it's the perfect place for my mind to be floating about right now.)

The doctor I saw today -- my last visit -- couldn't offer any reassurance, either. Turns out the regular ultrasounds done in the office are just for shits and giggles or who knows, maybe just padding their bottom lines as they cover their bottoms. And the quadscreen tests, not terribly reliable. All he could offer was sad eyes and a low, concerned voice, "we'll know on Tuesday."

I don't know how to face the next seven days.

*Time seems to have stopped.
*Eating isn't a priority.
*Writing doesn't matter, and yet it must get done.

There isn't enough food for thought.

All the niceties I contemplated ... birth announcements, phone trees for notification purposes, and other to-dos are at a standstill. The excitement is gone. Again. I am back to feeling like a horrible mother.

How do I move forward until I know what we're dealing with? As I make doctors appointments -- for myself and the newbie -– I envision a new life of trips to medical professionals, fears of being bullied into decisions I don't want to make, having to fight every step of the way.

I am reminded of little essay that parents of special-needs kids get handed pretty routinely by well-meaning folk called "Welcome to Holland," about how having a special-needs child is like planning a special trip to Italy. You learned the language and the customs. You are all set to tour Venice and Florence and Milan, but instead your find yourself landing in Holland.

All I can think is that having a special needs kid is NOT at all like getting rerouted to Holland. It's more like planning a wonderful vacation only to find yourself being sent to a war zone. A place that is frightening, not filled with flowers. Every time a doctor tells you the worst-case scenario, you have only the worst-case scenario.

You have to cover your eyes and plug on as their cover their asses. Hope is something you have to find on your own.

Perhaps in time you'll be taking the pretty photographs, and writing down the tales of all the adventures with an eye towards the comical, but at the moment you're just trying to learn the language, keep your head down and wait.

Would someone like to hit me over the head or burn down my house? Because that would really be a perfect end to this day

... you know, I'd just like to be prepared and all. ...

We had the Level II ultrasound today, and both of Thing 2's kidneys are indeed dialated - the right one only slightly and the left is more than twice the size of normal.

Another office, another set of forms to fill out, another gentle technician probes around. Spending a lot of time on his face. She waits until he moves his hand away from his mouth so she can get a unobstructed view. He smiles a little as I watch her nudge him with the wand. I melt.

Another printout from the machine. "Here. Have a second copy for your husband," she says, and I thank her. She gathers a ribbon of printouts and leaves the room to get the doctor. I wait there, sitting up on the table, looking at his little, sleeping face in my hands.

Another smiling doctor. This one is more than happy to tell me not only is kidney dilation a marker for Down syndrome, but that while everything else has seemed OK up until now, she's seen LOTS of people come through her office with only one marker turn out to have Downs babies. "We'll only know for sure after he's born."

Really? Thanks for that.

I really, really, really, really hate the medical profession

"Hello? This is Tina from your OB-GYN office? Sorry to call you at work but I've got you an appointment for the Level II ultrasound and consult ... "

"Uhm ... someone already called me and told me it was set for Monday."

"Ah, no. There's nothing down for you on Monday. It's next Tuesday ... "

"Would that be before or after I give BIRTH to the baby you want to see in the ultrasound?"

"Let me call you back."

"Yeah. Why don't you do that."

The picture's not as clear now

Just another fuzzy picture: a face moving in and out, legs kicking, arms waving. Constant motion. My son. Our son.

At a 36-week (give or take) ultrasound they performed today to see if the baby's head was up or down (why this mattered, I have no idea as we are having a c-section anyway) the technician observed and noted the baby's left kidney was dilated.

The midwife, who closed her eyes tightly as she tried to explain what was lurking in my chart, smiling away with all the assurances of someone who'd seen it all before (a lot so don't worry) didn't end up being much reassurance.

She explained that generally when this kind of thing is "observed" they recommend the babies be seen by a neonatologist after the birth. They will perform a renal ultrasound, and perhaps other tests, to determine what should be done: surgery or wait and see if it resolves itself.

What resolves itself? What surgery? What is this?

I left the office not really knowing what I had just been told and, what's worse, the feeling of having no real ability to ask the questions that would get the answers I wanted.

The tape running through my head said "don't worry just yet" just like the midwife advised. ... However, I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself. This pregnancy hasn't been as trouble-free as the first. I haven't had the good, carefree feelings that marked my nine months with Annabel. I thought it was just the sadness of losing Lori, the uncertainty of moving to a new caretaker and the upheaval it means for Annabel.

I thought once the baby was born I could relax, and things would be better. My fears would prove unfounded and my anxiety would simmer down. I would be able to breath easily again. Foolishness.

That's what motherhood is all about, no?

Don't. Worry. Mom. Three words that when strung together really show the nature of the perfect oxymoronic sentiment.

I called Jed as soon as I left the doctors' office. Talking to him as I walked back to my own office down a back alley, trying to be diligent about looking out for traffic as I crossed streets.

"They don't know what the significance is yet, and they probably won't find out until after he's born," I said into the phone. "I really think some of the women in my internet group have dealt with this before. I'm going to ask them."

I could tell by his voice he was feeling like taking back all the negative things he'd ever said or thought about my "imaginary" friends.

As soon as I got to my desk, I did what everyone tells you to avoid: typed "fetal dilated kidney" into Dr. Google and got this.

I read it, and realized that it sounded similar to something that had come up at least once in the group. So I headed over there and started a thread. Within minutes there was not only an outpouring of support from those without answers but also a whole host of first-hand experience from moms and relatives of kids who'd been similarly diagnosed. I found the reassurance I needed there.

I find it so incredible that just three and a half years ago I was alone with my intuition and gobs of advice that was often at least three decades old. And now, just sitting in front of a computer screen, I've found out all about the kindness of strangers and the idea that nothing really is as bad as it seems.

To top it off, when I finally got home there was a box waiting for me. Weighing almost as much as Annabel and sent from a family I've only met in photographs, The Klapow Kids, the enormous package was filled with a bounty of wonderful clothes for Thing 2.

I can't really tell you how truly humbled and thankful I am to be living in a virtual world.

I don't understand what they're trying to tell me ...

If any of you sign up for e-mail updates for pregnancy-related stuff you already know about the kind of advice they give you, most of which borders on the rediculous.

With both pregnancies, I signed up with Babycenter for its once-weekly e-mails that let me know how I should be feeling that week. More than not, it was right on the money. The week it told me I might experience leg cramps ... I did. Similarly, the weeks it suggested I would feel tired, I did. Bleeding gums? Check. Nosebleeds? Got 'em. Fetal movement? Yes-siree-bob. The only thing I managed to avoid this time around was the dreaded round ligament pain.

For some reason, I enjoy getting these missives. I like the simple paragraph that tells me frankly what's typically happening inside my gene pool. It's enough information to keep me going but not enough to make me crazy.

I learned my lesson about too much information the first time around, after the sheer excitement of being pregnant caused Jed to run out and purchase every damn pregnancy guide known to man.

We had been on vacation and it was raining so all I did was immerse myself in the books. ...

'UHHHH... Varicose veins ... hemorrhoids ... miscarriage ... bedrest ... preterm labor ... fetal or maternal death?

WHO ON EARTH WOULD EVER RISK PREGNANCY?'

After scaring myself beyond redemption, I stopped reading and decided to consult the books only when I had a question. I felt better. The first chance I got I shipped those books over to the library book sale. Good riddance.

Yet the need for information creeps in, even the second time around. I don't consult books anymore, however, and I don't even look at the chat boxes of Babycenter site, where "women at your stage" talk about the joys that it is to be a parent.

Frankly, I don't understand their happy, shiney "I love being a mom and telling you what I'm doing better than you" brand of maternal-one-upsmanship. Nevertheless, I signed up for the e-mail updates just for the nostalgia and pretty much ignore everything else. Half-way through this gestation, I even expanded my virtual junkmail to include spam from PregnancyWeekly.

But my gosh, is that site's particular brand of wisdom just the opposite of interesting or what?

As evidence, I'd like to share the e-mail that came today. ...



Aside from the fact that I barely COMB my hair on a normal day, pregnant or not, let alone spend any time styling it, I find something completely offensive about a pregnancy tip that spends any time discussing something two feet above my uterus that is not spelled B-R-A-I-N.

As in ... do they think I don't have one?

It's beginning to seem real

newborn, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

Oh sure, for you folks it's been real all along. Some crazy, mommy-blabber writing ad nauseam about the joys and craptacular moments of a second pregnancy. (yyyyyyyyyyyawn).

But even though I talk about it, and even think about it to the point of obsession, the whole concept of another person in the house has eluded me.

It's not as if I'm delusional, really. It's not as if I don't know this thing twisting around in my belly is more than a silly parlor trick I use to amuse myself late at night when I can't sleep.

(Yes, son, I think it's hilarious that if I balance an envelope on the "fundus" eventually you move it around like a boat on the water. I call the simple little game 'Fundus for One of Us').

I know you're going to be here soon. I worry about all the things I haven't done. All the errands I've ignored. The organizing I've put off. I worry about how Annabel will feel once her planet is bumped from the center of the universe. I worry about whether I'll be able to leave the house at a reasonable hour ever again with an infant and a preschooler in tow. I wonder how I'll manage to do all the things I could barely manage to do with just one child grabbing on to my leg and yelling "PICK ME UP."

But I haven't given a single thought to what YOU will be like, Thing 2.
Will you be funny and sweet? Will you be stoic and wise? Will you walk early or late? I'm sure there's all kinds of comparisons we'll be making as we try to get to know the you that is separate from us.

I never stopped to think about whether there is enough love to go around, even though I know it's a normal qualm needing quelling. As a parent, so the cliche goes, you are so enamoured with your firstborn that you can't imagine anyone else fitting in between.

It's something that can't be easily explained. It has to be felt.

This morning, when Annabel woke me up with her usual greeting: "It's morning time. It's not night time anymore," and I opened my eyes to see her crooked smile and tousseled head inches from my nose, I knew there is love enough for two.

If one of these is joy two has got to be fairly close to nirvana.

Gritting my teeth

Word of advice? It is NEVER a good idea to refer to a pregnant woman as "fatty."

The emphasis in that last statement was "NEVER" in case you missed it.

It's really for your own good that I suggest this, because if you think such comments are funny and cute, there's an exceptionally high probability that you make people's skin crawl.

Even Ittybit knows calling someone "fat" isn't advisable. And had she been awake to hear the aformentioned comment, she would most definitely have come to my defense.

"She's not fat, she's holding my brother."

A little lookie lou ...

thing 2 -- 29 weeks, originally uploaded by toyfoto.

A banner day at the ob's office: intake of yucky glucose drink on empty stomach at 8:30 a.m. followed by an ultrasound, which because of position (me, lying on my back, not baby who is still breech presentation) made me want to vomit, and then, finally, a quick (surprise) visit with the doctor. I was actually at work a few minutes later than my usual arrival. Go figure.

The stats look like this:

*I fully expect to fail the simple glucose test -- because I did with Annabel -- and will be required to take the three-hour tolerance version.

*Thing 2 is measuring right at 29 weeks, weighing in at 2 pounds six ounces. The doctor says that's solidly in the 50th percentile. He's happily swimming around and poking me in the left side with his feet, not caring at all about the numbers game we're playing out here.

*Also, with 10 weeks left to go, I am officially one pound away from attaining the total weight gain I had with Annabel.

*The rash has now been conclusively determined to be PUPPPS. So that means it's here for the remainder of the pregnancy and might even get worse.

*AND .... (imagine drumroll here) Thing 2 has a tentative potential birthdate. ... Although not set in stone, it looks like the surgery schedule for the c-section will be June 18 or 19th ... two weeks before the due date.

I can't believe it's only two months away. Where did the time go?

Blink and you miss it

A friend of mine recently relayed a story about how, at 27 weeks gestation with her second child, she'd attended her first prenatal yoga class and nearly cried at the thought of how this time around she hadn't been taking care of herself.

How is it possible, she wondered, that it had taken so long to check in with herself and connect with the newbie? Just one hour a week, that's all she needed.

That's what it's been like for me this whole winter. The weeks just seem to fly by, bringing with them one niggling sickness after another. From one head cold to a stomach ailment and right back to nasty head cold, I've been coping since November with this cyclical suffering.

If it weren't for monthly obstetrics appointments I'm sure I'd forget I was pregnant at all. I can't help but feel sad that I haven't been as present with Thing 2 as I was with Ittybit. I haven't enjoyed it as well.

If I say that aloud I instantly feel the cold gazes of women and the incredulous looks from their menfolk. To many of them enjoying pregnancy is a contradiction in terms.

But I readily admit that I am one of those oddballs who LOVES being pregnant.

For the most part, I feel fine if not better than I normally do during my regular, single-serve existence.

Even the not-so-nice parts -- the heartburn, nosebleeds and itchy skin -- are merely momentary inconveniences easily explained and easily set aside. I know it's the pregnancy that causes it, and as such I can let it go. No worries.

With Ittybit I attended my regular, weekly yoga class religiously; I went to the gym after work three days a week and walked my legs tired on the treadmill; I took time most every morning to follow Shiva Rea's lead on a prenatal exercise tape I vowed would become a staple in my life, even after the pregnancy was over, because I enjoyed its flow.

But my life is markedly different this time around. I come straight home from work, feeling the weight of guilt for having spent so much time away. Every weekend is set aside for "Mommy" time.

"Me" time is what I steal late at night and early in the morning, and cheat my husband out of whenever I get the chance. Me time is for writing about HER, and processing photographs of HER life, and checking in with other moms to reassure myself that I'm at least getting a quarter of it right.

That's the ME I've become. A mother. And not even an efficient one at that. Every morning I pat myself on the back for being able to get out of the house with a kid who's only partially dressed and fed a mere 20 minutes past the time I'd really wanted to leave.

What pains me, though, isn't the "ME" time I'm missing. It's the "HE" time.

I've been making due by keeping score during the morning and evening kickfest game that the inside of my belly has become. I lift my shirt and look down in amusement as one quadrant of my blue-veined abdomen jumps and squirms.

I may not feel as if I'm in this game, but at least I'm cheering it on.

... That's what I tell myself, anyway.

Children are a pain in my ...

Apparently, children are a pain in my neck. ... Or throat to be more precise.

I had not thought it would be possible to experience worse heartburn with Thing 2 than I had with Annabel. I didn't think worse heartburn WAS possible. Surely, I must be remembering it it all wrong because last night as I lay awake for the third night in a row, wanting to cry and knowing there are FIVE MORE MONTHS of this to come, I couldn't believe it had been this bad.

I couldn't even find comfort sitting in an upright position. I know it sounds astounding, but the burning in my throat, the gagging on bile, the feeling of general sickness took me by complete surprise. How can I stand FIVE. MORE. MONTHS. of this?

I remember telling people that I had horrible heartburn with Annabel and that I'd gained only 12 pounds during the entire pregnancy because of it, but I'd truly forgotten how awful it was. Drinking water, even in small amounts, seems to produce the same general results of eating an Italian hoagie stuffed with sausage, onions and sauce. I don't remember feeling nausiated at the same time, though. That's new.

I also don't remember it sneaking up on me. The feeling of fullness decends upon me without warning: One minute you're asking for seconds of pasta and the next -- only one morsel later -- you're wishing you could vomit to feel some relief.

One of the first things that happened to make me think I might be pregnant this time around was that I woke up one morning to the undeniable horror of reflux; it was at least two weeks before I would be able to take a pregnancy test.

I hadn't had heartburn since Annabel was born ... I wonder if that means ...

Sure 'nuff. Strange, though, how I'd thought this pregnancy would be different.

******
Annabel isn't feeling well either. Poor thing is at the doctor as I write this, having woken up from her nap with a swollen, goopy purple eye. She's been fighting a cold all weekend and awoke this morning with crusty eyes. I thought it might be from sleep, but no. She is a mucus factory, and it's being produced from virtually every orifice.

So I'll just be sitting here swallowing fire and crossing my fingers that I'm the only one suffering tonight.

******
Well Jed called from Albany Tile (where he is trying to figure out if what he wants to do with surround of new tub/bathroom is even feasible **Blink, blink**) to say that Annabel is fine, and in the most graphic of technical explanations, there's a rather simple reason for the goopy gunk swelling up her eyes: The tear ducts usually drain through the nose but when mucus cloggs the nose as much as Annabel's nose is currently clogged it sometimes oozes out the eyes. Lovely, huh?

She sounds good, though. I could hear her prattling on in the backround, talking about all the ice cream she'll eat when it's summer.

Skipp(y)ing a generation

Sometimes Annabel points to my chest and says, "My baby's in there."

The "MY BABY" phrasing always makes me think of her as a mommy and me as a surrogate. I laugh at the visual in my head as I try to direct her index finger a bit lower, toward my expanding waistline.

"No, Honey. Your baby's in HERE," I say for emphasis.

"No! She's in there," she responds with a voice filled with confidence and a double pointed poke that simulaneously reinforces her belief that the baby is (a) really a girl, and (b) inside my breasts (which I must admit do appear as if they are making a more rapid increase in size than my uterus).

It's also amusing because so far I have yet to experience the fabled "pregnancy cravings" I've heard so much about.

When I was pregnant with Annabel I did eat a lot of spinach and chicken -- and ended up with an aversion to eggs in the last several months -- but I assumed my desires for different foods had more to do with what didn't burn as much when it was coming back up the tube in the form of acid reflux. It was all about trial and error, not genuine larder lust.

This time around I've noticed a desire for all kinds of cheese -- from American to Cottage -- but that's not unusual for me. Whenever I put anything into my mouth I wonder: Is this a pregnancy craving, really, or is it just the normal fluctuations of supply and demand? You know, like whenever Atomic Fireballs are stocked in the office vending machine -- Pregnant or not, they call to me.

But every day Annabel comes up with a new taste sensation that only she seems to be able to fathom.

"I really think I'm going to be sick," said Jed last night at dinner as she dipped green bean after green bean into grape juice and gobbled them down like candy.

"Why does she want her peas frozen?" he asked last week as he poured the peas directly from bag to plate.

"I don't know. I think it's because she's weird," I say, neglecting to mention the dessert of ice cream she demanded not long ago was to be drizzled with the green legumes instead of the traditional sugary sprinkles.

I thought perhaps it was the desire to shock and amuse that caused her to tell the sitter she didn't actually like peanut butter and celery, and instead dipped spoonfuls of corn into the little tub of Skippy I'd sent for snack.

But now I'm wondering if she didn't inherit the pregnancy cravings I've never had?

This is what best friends are for ...

ME: Guess what? We're officially in the mixed-bag club.

MARTHA: CONGRATS! Wait. What do you mean mixed-bag club?

ME: It's a boy. And we already have the girl ...

MARTHA: Oh good... I was fearing you were telling me it was a hermaphrodite.

The amazing weirdness of being

I had a bad feeling about this.

The "big day" rolled around and we were all sick.

Ittybit had been on the mend, but a belly full of cherry tomatoes came back to haunt her at midnight. I was in the throes of the worst of the vomiting, wondering if I should just postpone it until we all felt 100 percent.

The obstetrics appointment, that is.

The ultrasound; the prodding, the poking -- all of it might best be left to another day.

And yet, the guilty part of me that says you must not procrastinate; you must avoid the glaring voice at the other end of the phone -- the one whose job it is to reschedule these hard-fought appointments. The one who undoubtedly will say: "You know each one of these appointments is IMPORTANT!"

Oh, but bringing a clingy toddler because you really don't want to send her to daycare with an ounce of residual illness that she can lob in the direction of another unassuming preschooler, seemed worse.

Would it even be possible to see the newbie taking up residence in the womb Ittybit once shared through the clingy little girl who’d undoubtedly wrap her tiny body around me as soon as I tried to put her down?

I can do this, I thought optimistically. We can do this.

And so we did.

As usual, I arrived early (operating under the misguided premise that if you arrive early you have a chance of being seen early) and we waited. And waited. And waited.

After the second trip to the bathroom and the 100th "We'll be called when it's our turns," we were called.

To my surprise Ittybit sat quietly in the chair by the door where I'd put our things. She said she didn't want to see her baby on the television screen. She looked away as I turned to sit on the examining table.

The technician applied the gel and started probing around; looking first at the internal organs before going in for a gander at the real goods. I turned my head to ask Ittybit if she could see and she answered "no" with a scowl in her voice. It seemed she didn't want to look. I turned back to the monitor.

But just as the little baby appeared in the screen, a little hand took mine.

No words, just her hand in mine.

It was really the oddest thing.

She wouldn't talk about what happened in that darkened room for the rest of that day. She wouldn't look at the printouts the technician had given us. It was as if none of it ever happened.

But the next day, when we were both feeling better, she headed to school and me to work, she asked to see the pictures so she could show her friend "Elias," the new baby, whose "head was here and body was right there."

I listened at the door for a while as she explained about the "goop" they put on her mommy's belly, and how this was her little sister ...

She poked her head back into the room where I was listening and yelled ... "Hey, Ma? When is my baby sister coming?"

"In July, sweetie. In July."

And now, veee daunce ... (because, as it turns out, we are not one hit wonders after all)

Remember ... I don't know. ... say back in August, when I told you all about the heartbreaking experience of discovering Ittybit may, in fact, be an only child?

Yeah ...

... well ...

Nevermind.**



According to Annabel, her "sister is coming."

"She's very, very small (picture preschooler thumb and forefinger pressed tightly together) and we're going to name her 'Lola' or 'China.'"

Get that? She is NOT having a boy!

It's too early yet for an official word on whether her girl will actually BE a girl, however I pitty a boy named Lola.

There is uncertain proof, however, that Thing Two has already benefited from its big sister's love, albeit inadvertantly, via the binky Ittybit gave to Santa on Christmas.

Study the ultra sound printout carefully if you will ...

See that? In it's little mouth? No? Try tilting your head to the left and squint. See it now? Do you know what that is? I'm telling you this kid's entering the world with its own pacifier. My guess is Thing Two has overheard all the commotion around these parts concerning "binkectomies" and some oversized elf taking binkies and replacing them with something dumb like lip gloss and decided to take matters into its own hands. I imagine it astutely determined that a baby has very little use for Chapstick.


----------------------------------


**I actually went through a three-pack of pee sticks just to be sure, but I couldn't bear to post the photos of them all. Two should have sufficed but ya know, what does one do with the third, unused stick? Perhaps it would have made a good watering monitor for houseplants. We'll never know.