Quickish update
So a few things are going on. I am ignoring email so sorry to anyone trying to reach me that way… I’m kind of in triage mode.
On labour
My sister is still in pre-term labour, which is - amazing, for her baby. Her OB has admitted that she has no idea why the drugs are working, but they are. However, it has been a very hour-by-hour struggle… for almost 4 weeks. Contractions will start. They change her dose around. Then they stop. Then she’ll go for a while without any. Then they’ll come back regularly. She’s effaced, dilated, and has been stuck on her back all this time. The baby seems to be doing okay and is growing which is - lovely. Around 3 lbs now, which is fantastic. (30 weeks) It’s all kind of miraculous.
The baby’s heart sometimes decelerates. No one really knows why. I don’t particularly like that. It comes back ok, with oxygen sometimes. Sigh. Shades of Emily, except, you know, people doing stuff.
My sister has had headaches, shakes, is develping a blood clot (she may have to go on heparin) and has only slept intermittently… for 3.5 weeks. She has bounced between the ante-natal ward and L&D. Plus contractions. Plus being stuck in bed. If she stands up, contractions. If she gets emotional… you get the idea. It is so hard. She is amazing! She is freaked out and exhausted. She will have to grieve the loss of a normal pregnancy. Her husband is doing okay and is with her most of the time. My parents just got back but her in-laws are down. I may go down any minute really, but am trying to hold my precious vacation time for when the baby is coming home. They are going to be exhausted. I can’t imagine starting parenthood after such a draining experience.
On stress & illness
For me, a minor spectator at this point, it has been well, hard. The first week I was sort of flipped out- not just for them, but also lots of (predictably) nightmares about Emily. Anger, about Emily. And lack of sleep, which made me tired. I messed something up at work… and discovered you do not actually have to quit your job if you mess up, you can like, FIX it. You can even do it firmly and seriously but without drama, like this: Oh yes, that was a day late, but it is done now. You do not have to fall on your sword or wring your hands and wail. That was kind of an accomplishment, but it came at some emotional price.
Then I got a cold, which turned into a sinus infection but before I could get in for that, I stopped being able to walk up stairs, which was confusing. So I went into the clinic last weekend and got sent for an x-ray and I had pneumonia. This is a pattern. My sister said on the phone “oh! That’s become you were a preemie!” I sort-of laughed. It is true that I have had pneumonia about 15 times in my life (twice this year!) and been hospitalized for it. And I was a preemie. But it’s also usually my body’s sign that I’m stressed out. NO SHIT.
On work and new adventures on old turf
This week I almost caught up at work. Next week I am on my first press junket (if I don’t go to Texas) ever, ruining my journalistic integrity in… fashion. Since I didn’t really have any to speak of, I’m ok on the junket; my PseudoBoss basically told me I was going. Someone has to represent, I hadn’t done a turn, and also there is a luxury room for a night involved. I realize that doesn’t sound like work and you know, there is definitely that element… but it is work. It’s sort of like a conference. It’s got its perks that are extraordinary (keep reading) but you have to network and write and be your best sparkling self and not embarass your company.
I think if I were not still a bit sick, tired, riding the wave of “what’s important is life without brain damage!” and generally a little numb, I actually would be totally freaked out about spending two days with basically North America’s fashion editorial crew (junior staff edition). For someone who spent 9th grade doing her best to dress like a Jedi (not kidding, but in my defense jumpsuits were very 80s), this is something of a… thing. Think Devil Wears Prada or Running In Heels (is that it?) or Ugly Betty. Those things are not actually entirely inaccurate. And I would be the Betty.
It is in the Laurentians, which is the spiritual home of the warrior caste of my system and my own birthplace, so it is pretty much sacred ground. If I were going to pick ground upon which to meet fashion people, I’d probably have chosen one town over, so we’re good. Actually that’s pretty much how I beat my record of turning down press trips (I have turned down, among other things, an Alaskan cruise, Disney, and New Zealand so far). I heard this “I’d really like YOU to go to this… Laurentians… clothes… horses.*” It was only when I was asked for my dress size (12) and the PR person GASPED IN HORROR that I came out of my little fog. They are doing their best to accomodate my horrendous shape for the fittings. And yes. I have to take off some clothes and join into the fun - with a bunch of size 0-4 fashion people.
Yes, I will disclose in my copy. I may have accepted the trip but I still have standards.
Noah
Is still the best thing since sliced bread. His imagination is wild and a little dangerous, as in “I can take pretty much any innocuous item in the house and turn it into a way to kill myself, and then insist that I am a knight/dinosaur/spaceship so it is OKAY.” His joy is contagious. My mother-in-law was down and we took him for a streetcar ride across Toronto (501 from Neville to Long Branch in case anyone is wondering) and he was enthusiastic the entire time about everything we saw.
He also babbles and asks questions incessantly. I had a Yard Sale for the Cure this morning (I know, I know, but I’d committed to doing it… we did have less stuff due to having had to spend the whole weekend before literally in bed) and all morning it was “why is that man looking at the lawn mower?” “Why did that man not buy the lawn mower?” etc.
So there we are. I have let a number of things drop that I will need to pick up after the press junket from hell.
Hope everyone is well.
* P.S. On horses
Part of the fun is wearing the clothes on horses. I’m not kidding. I have never really learned to ride, but I have ridden. Probably I’ve told this story before but here goes: As I said, I’ve never had riding lessons of any sort, although I’ve sat on a horse while it walked sedately around in the name of tourism a few times.
Then when I was around 20 and my life was about to fall apart and we had revealed our abuse to our family, my parents took us on an all-inclusive trip to Vermont. And part of the inclusion was trail rides. So I called up to book one and they asked “English or Western saddle” and I said English ’cause like… Canadian. Anyways, the stables interpreted this as being experienced. After the ride I commented to the guide that that was fun for my 5th time on horseback and he got a funny look and said “that was what?” and it turned out they’d given me some fractious horse and stuck me on a more advance trail.
Why this has stuck with me, besides being probably one of three times in my life that I ever showed a vaguely natural talent for doing something sporty (the other two being archery and canoeing, both of which I ended up instructing), is that it was one of those moments in my life that I can look back on and remember that moment - the guy being vaguely impressed, unless he was bullshitting me to pay for lessons - and remember that my inner life and my outer life aligned. I remember standing thinking simultaneously “That’s weird because I don’t know how to ride at all” and “but of COURSE I can ride because I am the Warrior Queen, silly.”
Not that I would count on this ability for squat, rationally. Irrationally I sort of do vaguely think that if I really had to I could race a horse across the dessert to warn the King of Archenland that… oh wait, that Shasta in the Horse and His Boy. :)
Parenting epiphany
You know how some groups of parents (myself included) try to accept our kids where they are as well as guide them. For example, although I know that Noah cleans up after himself at Montessori pretty well and that he could do more tidying here, and I kind of wish he would, and I would like him to grow up to be the sort of man who cleans up after himself… I also think he is young and this is his home and it is okay to not demand all good things all the time from him.
So I was thinking about this the larger contexts: Should our kids respect that there is some authority with which we just have to comply? (Like a police officer’s request to get out of the vehicle.) That life is unfair? That you have to work hard for money, generally?
Is it our role as parents to create an environment that closely resembles the so-called real world, or to lean towards something a bit more idealistic?
And I realized that I want to raise a child who fundamentally expects to be treated well, fairly, and so on. But who can adapt to less than ideal circumstances.
I feel like for me, I have the adaptation down okay, but each roadblock seems to confirm a darker, more adversarial world view.
Update; sunshine
My sister is still in labour, although the third drug helped a lot (which, no matter what, she can only be on until Sunday) - she had almost 12 hours with few contractions. Now, however, she is having the big ones and with “dangerous” decels, so they are still trying to stop it but also ready to do a c-section at any time.
However the baby crossed the 2 lb mark, from all indications, so this is a really really good thing.
She is a very strong woman. I’m still waiting to see what happens; I think we all know that barring her labour miraculously stopping itself, this is going to be a long road. At 30 weeks they pretty much plan to deliver no matter what (that would be a week from next Thursday). Since she’s in the US, she doesn’t get decent mat leave (sorry, but it is true) and it’s doubtful there won’t be a long NICU period. Which is why I have not rushed to her side yet. She might need help when the babe is in the NICU, or after the babe comes home, or before the babe goes to daycare, so I am hoarding my days and money at this point.
For my mood; it’s improved a lot with a night of decent sleep. Noah and I are enjoying having my parents’ dog - it’s a pain to have a dog, but the walks to the park are really nice. Work went well yesterday and I remembered why I do it. This weekend we’re taking it as easy as possible.
Hope everyone out there is well. One day this will not be the crisis & doom blog. :)
Update on pre-term labour
So my sister is hanging in there, but it has been very rough going. She was on the magnesium sulfate, but she started having 4 minute long contractions, not frequently, but the baby’s heart would decel badly during them.
So they put her on procardia, and she started having contractions 2 minutes apart.
So they put her back on the mag sulfate, but she had chest pain and another long contraction. So they put her on something else I didn’t get repeated ’cause I’m tired of Googling. So now she’s down to contractions every 5 minutes. 3.5 cm dilated. She has been in this state, with this up and down stuff, since Monday evening. I am so sad for her. It is wonderful what science has wrought by way of possibly lifesaving interventions, but the physical, gruelling aspect of these particular ones on her are pretty awful.
I would be lying if I didn’t confess that when I heard about the decels, it wrecked me for a bit. (I still wanted to know, if said sister ever reads this.) I think despite my knowledge of preemies and all, I had simply not allowed myself to think that her baby might die until I heard of the dread decels. And then I had irrational anger that when her baby had decels people ran in the room and Did Something.
By the way, the baby seems to be doing very well. She’s just, you know, under 2 lbs at best estimate, and not ready to be born into this world. My sister has managed to get 60 hours past her first steroid shot, at least, but it would be good to keep going.
I had a really good flashback to labour - so good, although mercifully brief, that I should go on a tour about PTSD and how yes, the body does remember.
I kind of feel burnt entirely at this point. It’s been a real juggling act this year between my health, my job, my son, my house, and my “life” - including finding a wee little space to be multiple, to be real, and so on.
It seems like this latest round of experiences - bad, bad bleeding miscarriage; sister in a horrendous pre-term labour that hits my Emily buttons - is doing my balance in a bit. Well I’m up anxious at midnight, so that’s a clue. But it’s also that I’m feeling a lack of reserves, like our life doesn’t really give us the space to rejuvenate. I’m thinking what to do about that.
And mostly just holding my thumbs for my sister. Soon she’ll have been having this horrid experience longer than Emily was alive, and the strange thing is that the hope is that she’ll keep having it in the sense that the baby stays put. I may just fly down at some point. But then of course it will be a huge issue at work.
Yeah, so
Well here’s the update. My sister is still in labour but they have managed to slow it down. A little. If she is “lucky” she will probably have a labour over 2-3 days. At least her husband got there. Yes she has had the steroids and is in the excellent hands of good insurance in the US.
She has had the scary talk with the neonatologist. Despite all the scary stats, we all know each baby is different and will have her own struggles. I am however very sad for my sister and everyone that this is going to be such a struggle and so much worry. However, I’m an optimist and see no reason to assume the outcome will be dire.
Of course this doesn’t stop me from remembering the NICU kind of intensely. And we were only there for 3 days.
I’ll go down soon/eventually. Right now I’m the backup.
Kinda puts things in perspective.
It’s actually a family curse
My sister called tonight. She went into labour today - she is 3 cm dilated, 80% effaced.
She is at just under 28 weeks gestation. They are trying to stop the labour. Other than that, I have no info.
Her husband was across the country for business and is in flight (literally). My parents are driving across the border to get a very early flight. I’m staying here for now, but may be heading down depending on what happens.
I’m in Toronto. She is in Texas. It’s never been this far before!!! I am so sad she went into labour alone. Even if they stop it, that’s just scary for her. I know she’s strong and capable but - it sucks.
It’s kind of a wonder the human race reproduces at all.
23andme
I should probably preface this by saying that I did not bank Noah’s cord blood.
It’s not that I would want Noah to die of leukemia, or that the fear was not in me after losing Emily. It’s that I pretty much have a big response against the kind of fear-based marketing that says do this now in case there is a cure later. I have no problem with carseats and outlet protectors or health insurance. But I do have a problem with companies basing their profit on fear of being behind the eight ball when/if medical science advances.
If 23andme were to have confined its marketing to the “isn’t it cool you can map your genes! And hey contribute to our research!” type of marketing, I would think it was neat.
But going after pregnant women and mothers is really disturbing to me. Other than when my grandmother was diagnosed with Parkinsons (making me, incidently, one of the people 23andme has tried to market to), I can think of no other time I cared as much about my genes as when I was pregnant. Nor another time when I was so aware of the need for good advice and wisdom, as opposed to just information.
I have watched pretty cynically as 23andme has wined and dined key members of my “posse” of mommy blogs/infertility blogs that I read. When they launched their pregancy community that seemed like a big grab.
But the pre-ecclampsia thing… I don’t know, that tore it for me. I kind of hope that in 5 years I’ve been proven wrong.
But chosing a topic that is going to appeal to like, every pregnant woman with a brain, and dangling Knowledge and Information in front of them when the science is just not there yet… that bothered me.
This isn’t as articulate as I would like it to be ’cause I’m tired out, but I have been feeling this dangle. Basically, I think that whether intended or not, 23andme has used bloggers’ ignorance about the difference between PR and journalism, and their personal stories of infertility and parenting, to market a product that really isn’t going to do much. Congratulations, you may be more at risk than the general population… have a good pregnancy.
How does this help? It basically makes the same people that would worry about it, worry about it more. People who are finding out they can get the gene scan are the ones already aware of the problem. There is not really a known solution.
And the genius and evil thing about it, is that 23andme has never made the claims that bloggers have made or implied on their behalf - that buying the gene scan will directly make your pregnancy safer, or your parenting better. Because that would be wrong.