Category Archives: health

family, health

Nothing has changed…

2 Comments

Since last night, so we are still waiting to see. The nurse on staff with Mom told us that she is being heavily flooded with antibiotics to try and kill the pneumonia, and that we will know in the next 48 hours if she is likely to recover or not. If she is not, Lee will likely go home to see her for a couple of days and I will say here with my legs crossed chanting “not today baby, not today.”

Oh I have so many feelings about this. He and I have worked so hard over the last nine months towards this delivery, and him not being there was never really in our plans, but I simply can’t get over the feeling that he has to go home and see her if she is not going to recover. If she is, then there is time and he can go see her after the baby is born. Hell, if she is going to recover, we can all go, bring Otter with us, and she can meet him.

The bad news is that it appears she is aspirating on food and drink, so the doctors said she may need a feeding tube placed in her stomach for the rest of her life. Apparently when the system that seperates the food and drink from the lungs breaks down there is no recovery, and therefore being fed via tube is the only remaining option. Niether Lee, her sister, nor I feel she will go for that, so even if she recovers, it may be simply to say goodbye. However, she will be able to make that decision for herself, as it is one that will arise if she recovers, so at least we don’t have to risk forcing that on her.

I will keep you posted as we know. Thank you all for your support.

health, pregnancy

So ready to pop!

4 Comments

Nine months is one month too many!!

Okay, I understand that creating human life is a beautiful and sacred thing, I get that it takes a long time to grow a human from an egg and a sperm. I get that the awesome power of birth is central to the most contentious political arguments in our culture.

However, I also can’t get off my couch anymore, or walk through the grocery store without availing myself of their bathroom. I can’t do anything without getting heartburn and my hips are letting me know what life at 110 is going to feel like. I understand that I should feel lucky to be a woman, and not an elephant, but really, nine months is one month too long!!

I am ready for pants that have zippers, the occasional beer, and a frickin pile of sushi! I am ready for lying flat on my back or stomach!

Why does our culture breed an expectation for an attitude of peaceful joy during pregnancy? I don’t feel calm, I feel impatient! I want to hold my baby, and get him out of me!! Most women I speak with sympathize with this sense of the final month taking for-frickin-ever, but we still have this image of the lovely pregnant woman peacefully eating her way through an entire chocolate cake and loving every crumbly minute. Where are the complaints? I don’t have gooey chocolate love, I have uncomfortable heartburny indulgence!! There is a foot permanently lodged in my stomach making chocolatey goodness my enemy!

Not to mention that I can no longer reach half my dishes, or half the stuff on grocery store shelves. Emptying a grocery cart is an acrobatic feat beyond my normal level of physical ability, and I can’t walk through any opening smaller than a banquet hall! I bump my ‘bump’ against everything that comes near it, and then moan because it’s extra sensitive to the touch!

Ugh. I feel like a huge mammoth beast, waddling towards my own self destruction. I don’t feel like a glowing serene woman on the verge of a miracle. I feel like a harried, tired, beached mammal trying desperately to feed and care for her current calf while preparing for the existence of another.

Moo.

health

Letters from the sick ward…

1 Comment

Last week Monkey had stomach flu, this week it was me. I do not advise having the stomach flu while eight months pregnant, I actually thought I had put myself in labor from the force of my vomiting. It was horrible. Happily it was over fairly quickly, only about 10 hours. Of course, it has taken me nearly two days to get back to eating normally, and I still feel very shaky.

Of course, before I could celebrate school starting again for Monkey, she came down with a high fever. She will be home for the rest of the week. It will be two weeks without school, two weeks of illness, two weeks of yuch.

Thankfully I decided not to take the bar exam. Between my doctor recommending I don’t and Monkey and I being home sick for two weeks the decision is well supported. So there is no Bar Exam in my immediate future, just the one in July.

I hope you are all feeling better than we are.