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Monday, Jul. 15, 2002 - 3:10 p.m. - What a Week!
As usual, I’ve been trying and meaning to write a journal update for quite some time. In fact, I had it on my to-do list for last Thursday, July 11, but a family emergency kept me from both going to our first “birthing” class and writing my journal entry. If you read my weblog you might have already read about the accident my Thai SIL (to distinguish her from my other SILs) had. Basically we were getting ready to prepare an early dinner so that we could attend our first birthing class (we’ve had a few other parenting classes so far, but this was the first about the actually birthing experience), when the phone rang. My SIL was on the phone and crying asking if we could please come up to her and she had an accident. That’s about all we could get out of her, but fortunately a friend was with her who was able to share a bit more information with us – basically that SIL was fine physically, but that she had driven through a glass door and window in a building!! So we packed our bags for an overnight stay, fed the cat and jumped in the car and headed up to Oak Harbor. Of course we were speculating the whole way up what might have happened. We had been told where the car was located and so we stopped at the strip mall and checked out the car. We were amazed to see that other than some chips and scratches in the bumper and the hood the car looked great! We could see where she had run into the building because there was plywood over the space where the window would have been and we tried to figure out what might have happened. It looked like she had somehow gone up onto the curb and crashed into a cement planter and then pushed that planter through the window and door of the office – which, wouldn’t you know it, happened to be an attorney’s office of all the luck! Seeing the car made us feel a lot better since the damage wasn’t bad and the airbag hadn’t even deployed (we came to find out the impact was so low it didn’t even cause enough of a bump to make the airbag deploy). So we went on to check on SIL. Fortunately, a friend of SILs had stayed with her until we got there, which was nice because she was still very shaky and in shock. It was then that we found out the reason for the crash was because she had fainted at the wheel while she was parking the car!! Of course, this news upset and scared us even more. Being the way she is, my SIL had refused to be taken to the hospital to be checked out and didn’t want to go to the doctor, but you can be sure that we forced her to go in the next day. In fact, I took her to the doctor, while Michael took care of all the police report and insurance crap. We found out that since she had returned home from our house that she hadn’t been eating. In fact, her refrigerator was practically empty – no eggs, no milk, no juice, etc. Between missing my BIL so much (he’s on deployment until December) and her insomnia she just hadn’t felt like eating and had hardly had any thing to eat or drink for the last few days. When she woke up shaky on Thursday morning, she just drank two Thai energy drinks thinking that would help, but they just made her feel worse with heart palpitations and jitters! (No surprise considering they pack it full of caffeine and sugar!) She felt she had to get out to pay a bill that had come and to look for work! So instead of staying home or calling someone because she felt so bad, she took off in her car to run her errands! Needless to say, I made sure the doctor found out about her sleeplessness, anxiety and lack of eating and drinking. The doctor agreed with me and felt that her anxiety was the root of all the problems. Basically she doesn’t sleep more than 2 – 3 hours a night because she lays awake worrying about everything under the sun, particularly her husband, money, finding a job (when she had a job she worried about oversleeping and being late), Michael and I, her family back in Thailand, etc, etc. Because she doesn’t sleep well, she doesn’t feel well and doesn’t feel much like eating or drinking. This is only made worse by the fact that she is alone and doesn’t want to bother to cook for herself. From there the cycle just continues in a downwards spiral. So the doctor set up an appointment for her to see her physician about anxiety medication and treatment and gave her some light sleeping pills for the interim. At the same time, I did some major networking and managed to find three people who would check up on her and make sure that she would attend her Dr’s appointments and who would invite her over from time to time for dinner and such. By the time we left on Friday evening we felt we had handled the situation pretty well and found a lot of help for SIL for the future. Those were a long two days though and we were pooped. Then Saturday we had a big function to attend at the winery where we were married. The owners of the winery are my parents closest friends and they were celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary and his 75th birthday. We’d been asked to say a few words, so I quickly wrote out a short speech for the evening. Fortunately the weather couldn’t have been better – sunny but not too warm and the evening was lovely. It brought back a lot of romantic and special moments for Michael and I, as we sat in the same area that we did for our wedding feast. Only 3 weeks and a few days and it will be our 3rd Anniversary! Then last night my mom called and invited us to come (last minute) to a dinner party she was throwing for their friends (the same ones who had celebrated their anniversary the night before) and all their relatives from Germany. It ended up being around 17 or so people! My other SIL (my brother’s wife) and I kept pretty busy in the kitchen serving up plates and washing up afterwards, but we had a good talk during that time and after everyone left my mom, SIL and I sat in the living room and chatted about all kinds of things until after 1:00 am. My relationship with this SIL has not ever been that good, so it was a real bonding moment and a really nice time. It made me feel much closer to her for the first time in all the 11 years that she’s been married to my brother. It gives me some hope that perhaps we can become a little closer in the future, even if we’ll never be “Kindred Spirits.” So, that’s brings me to today!!! (About time, huh?) Today we had our 32 week ultrasound and OB appointment. For the first time we invited my mom to come along to an ultrasound!! She had gone with me once back when the Peep was just about 6 or 7 weeks along, so this was the first time she got to really see the Peep (other than on video). She was thrilled, and all the ladies in the office had been saying how much they wanted to meet my mom since they had seen pictures of the nursery, so they got to meet her too. Anyway, the ultrasound went great. Sadly the Peep is getting so big it’s getting harder to see all her parts because you only can see bits and pieces on the screen now. We did see her foot and some toes, along with all the organs and head and brain. Sadly, she wasn’t showing her face well to us, so my mom never got as good a look at her face as we had the last time, but we did get to see her open her eyes and blink!!! We also could see her “breathing” and sucking a little. Everything measured fine. I am supposed to drink more water because while my fluid level is “normal” they said it could be a bit more. She is now measuring just 2 days behind her “gestational age” but is in the 50% in weight – so right on target for the average despite my Gestational Diabetes and APA+ status. Her weight currently is ~4 lbs 0 oz. – heavier than I was when I was born!!! (I was a preemie and only weighed 3 lbs 8 oz at birth.) Following our ultrasound appt we had our OB appt. When we got there, we found out that our OB had been called away into emergency surgery, so we saw a nurse midwife who was wonderful. My blood pressure was 122/74 (very good), no protein or sugar in my urine, my fundal height was right on target at 32 cm and the babies heartbeat was 150. Unfortunately, since we didn’t see our OB we didn’t get to ask all the questions we wanted too, but we did get a question answered about stopping the heparin. We were concerned that when we stopped the heparin I would become vulnerable (and the Peep would be vulnerable) to my blood clotting and blocking my placenta (which is why I was on the heparin in the first place), but we found out that since my blood is being kept extremely thin right now, that when I was taken off the heparin it would take a while for my blood to “thicken” back up to normal and even longer for it to start clotting in a dangerous manner, so that stopping it at the right time shouldn’t put the baby at risk. That was good to know, but it also means that I won’t be allowed to go beyond my due date in anyway. That’s good to know too. I still would like to find out about the c-section. While I still wish I could go through child birth in the “natural manner” (not necessarily without medication, but vaginally), I’m starting to get used to the idea of a c-section and the idea of knowing when exactly this child might be coming is a bit intriguing. It would be nice to know when exactly she would be arriving so I could plan things like the diaper service and other things better. I’m not thrilled at the thought of yet ANOTHER abdominal surgery, but I also know I’ve been through it before and a c-section is supposed to cause less downtime than my myomectomy did. Thanks to everyone who wrote me to show me some of the positives of c-sections. Most important as always is the health of the baby and the mommy – me! It might not be my ideal situation, but as long as it gets me to the end goal, that’s all that matters. After all, hardly anything about becoming pregnant and/or maintaining my pregnancy has been “normal” so why should her arrival be any different! Well, I think that about catches me up. As soon as I post this I know I’m going to have forgotten to mention something, but that’s just the way it goes. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Summer has definitely arrived for us here in Seattle and the temperatures have cooled down to their normal mid-70’s and I’m quite happy and comfortable. Saturday I have my second baby shower and I’m looking forward to seeing some more friends – mainly old family friends, the people who have watched me grow up! As always my mailbox is full of wonderful letters from my readers. I always mean to respond to each and every one, but as the days become so busy I’m getting further and further behind. I hope that everyone who has written me knows how much I appreciate their taking the time to write and share a bit of themselves with me. Many of your letters touch me to the core. I’m often stunned by the outpouring of kindness you all show me. I hate to be negligent with my correspondence, but I’m just not finding time to do it all. I hope that you will forgive me and not get too upset if you do not hear back from me, either for an extended period or in some cases at all. All I can do is apologize and let you know that I do appreciate your kind words. Thank you as always for taking time to read my journal! (I’m coming up on two years of journaling!!)
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