28 weeks (and definitely counting)

Today I am 28 weeks, officially in the third trimester, and because I'm fat and old, today I got the special experience of a fasting blood glucose test. My understanding is that in the US they're fairly deriguere but in the UK you only have to do it if you have 3 ticks on a list and last time I wasn't old (my other ticks are for being fat and extra fat respectively) so I've not had the, uh, pleasure before. 

The good news is that my results are "within normal parameters" which means I don't have gestational diabetes. There's no bad news, although highlights include my alarm going off at 7am but not being able to eat (anything) breakfast until 1pm, having exploratory phlebotomy - 3 midwives had a go at me (twice!) to actually find my veins, getting to drink Lucazode for the first time ever (a friend described it as 'Gatorade distilled x10, mixed with Sprite'), finding out I had to stay there and sit quietly for 2hrs or I would "compromise the results" meaning I couldn't go home and get Kristina so Chris could go to work and just return for the second blood draw as planned, and finally being left in the exam room for half an hour after the second draw because the (third) midwife said she'd be right back....and never came back to say I was done. Or bring me the promised plaster/band-aid. So, um, yeah. Fun. Much recommend. 

I am a bit miffed that I told the (technically fourth, but "first") for the next go-round) that this puncture was where the second midwife missed my vein and that puncture is where the third midwife found it and she stuck the needle pretty much exactly in the first puncture and - surprise - couldn't find a vein there, either. Other than that (and not bringing me my notes and telling me I could go home until I went looking for someone half an hour later), everything else is what it is.

In other news, the new single/twin bed we ordered for the nursery arrived just in time for Miss Amy to come for a visit and attend the Loch Ness Knit Fest with me weekend before last. We put it in Kristina's room for now in the hopes that we could get her sleeping in her own bed again if I am sleeping in the same room with a further hope to have me out of the room when her sibling comes.

So Sunday night, a week being how long it took me to wash the sheets and remake the bed and not be going to work and thus needing a decent night's sleep, we got ready for bed. Kristina ran to get her pillows (she has two so that I can share her pillow without making my heartburn particularly bed) and very excitedly put them in my bed. No, no, I explained, this is my bed, that's your bed. Absolute hysteria. I offered to switch beds with her, she could have the new bad and I would have the old bed, but no, the problem was that in separate beds I wouldn't be able to "body cuddle" (spooning) her all night. Well, no. I knew when she discovered spooning as an alternative to cuddling on top of me (no longer an option with the pregnancy) that it was going to be a problem. Used to be we'd cuddle for a bit, then she'd slide off and roll over and sleep on her side of the bed. Now she wants me to have my arm around her all night.

Needless to say we wound up moving back to the big bed in the middle of the night. I can't roll over with only a fraction of a single bed to work with and my abdominal muscles out of commission. Being pregnant is also why she moved into the big bed with me in the first place - I kept falling asleep with her at 8 o'clock in the first trimester and waking up 4 or 5 hours later, cold, stiff and cranky, sleeping on the edge of her bed. Much easier to move her into the big bed with me and just go to sleep. 

So on Monday I folded up the sofa bed, moved my knitting stuff from the nursery into the sofa bedroom and put the new bed in the nursery. Chris can sleep in there in a real bed and grandma can have Kristina's room when she comes and the baby, Kristina, and I will have to share the master bedroom. But no spooning after the baby comes.

Semianniversary

Little Djinn is six months old! It doesn't seem like we've had her nearly that long. We started her on solids this last week, though I've been slipping her food items to taste (and spit out, pulling faces) for about a month now. She started watching us eat with interest at around three months (craning her head to follow the trajectory of a cup) and everything she gets her hands on goes straight in her mouth so handing her bits of strawberry or apple or lettuce or whatever I was eating seemed like a good way t expose her to "taste" and "texture" of food with zero expectation that she would eat anything. The only thing she actually seemed to like the taste of was banana chips. But she was clearly ready so I bought a box of baby rice cereal (think cream of wheat but rice and made with breast milk) and she really seemed to enjoy it. She likes to hold her own spoon. I've been giving her 1tspn rice to 2tspns milk (today with a touch of ground cinnamon) and then giving her whatever is left in the bottle, followed by nursing and a nap (that's where we are now. I'm "typing" with my left pinky). She thinks letting me sleep in until 7 is a lie-in so it's not surprising that she's asleep again by 11. 

She loves bread and gets fed small pieces from my sandwich at lunchtime (she insists which is how we knew she's ready for solids) and Chris has started making food up for her - yesterday was potatoes and zucchini/courgettes with a touch of nutmeg which will be today as well. He bough sweet potatoes and carrots for more colourful lunches down the line. The rest of the day is nursing, nappy changes, playing, and baby-wearing while I do chores. This week I concentrated on the back patio, dead-heading the roses (followed by hacking them back when I decided I wanted actual space on the patio), hacking back the geraniums, pulling weeds, and owing to a fortuitous thunderstorm and deluge, not having to scrub the paving stones and furniture. Hopefully it will be dry this weekend and we can actually sit outside. 

On Fridays we go swimming, though this past week was the first time since Ted died, first with the funeral planning, then it was too hot* so we set up her bath tub in the back garden instead, and then I stepped on a sliver of something (Chris pulled it out and then threw it away before I could look at it) which went over half an inch into my foot, and one week we went to visit a friend in hospital instead. But Fridays we go swimming and we'll go later today. Sunday mornings we take a bath together. 

We start bedtime around 6:15 with baby massage, pjs (lately a onesie and maybe a light cotton blanket), shuttering the room, and then I read** while she crawls all over me and the bed until she's ready to nurse to sleep and I shift her to her cot, usually between 7 and 7:30, 8 at the latest. Meanwhile Chris makes dinner, we eat, watch an hour or two of telly, we get ready for bed, I express milk for Little Djinn's breakfast, we have a cuddle and I spend the night in the nursery. Little Djinn used to make it through the night with just one nursing but this past month has been evenly split between weeks when she does and weeks when she wakes up twice or more. Between that and her new habit of waking up between 6 and 7 (I entertain her until 8 and then we go join Daddy and it's his turn for a while) and I am a tired mama. The upside is that I've started taking my shower earlier, while Chris is playing with the Little Djinn and she doesn't scream the whole time like she does when I take my shower after Chris starts work and leave her in the nursery.

She can sit on her own, turn around, roll from her back to her front, suck on her toes, and rock on her hands and knees but she just can't quite crawl yet. In less fun news, Little Djinn has ringworm which is not a worm, it's a fungus. I'm trying to remember when I saw the first rash, but it was at the edge of her nappy and I though it was just a bit of chaffing. Two weeks ago she had another, similar rash, further down her thigh so I googled it and surprisingly the answer wasn't bubonic plague but a little painless rash for which there is over-the-counter cream. Chris was dubious, having not got a good look at her rashes, until he saw the same thing on his own thigh. They're sharing a tube of ointment.

In "way to bury the lede" news, back in March, at Little Djinn's 6 week checkup, the doctor thought she might have heard a murmmer and asked us to come back in a month when LD was a bit bigger to have another listen. That time she was certain she heard it, so we were referred to the paediatrician. Our appointment finally came up the week after Aged Parent passed away in June. The paediatrician listened to her heart and said "there's a murmmer" which I thought we already knew, but she referred us to have an ultrasound which we did a fortnight ago. The letter came yesterday saying she has an Atrial Septic Defect, which is to say a small hole between the upper two chambers of her heart. My understanding is that these "usually" close on their own, but at the very least she's in for a lifetime of sonograms.

* I know, hard to believe but it's an indoor pool and it's always hot and stuffy in there, even in winter, so I didn't want to face it on a hot (warm) day.

** River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay which was beautiful but ended abruptly. I get why, but I still feel like I read half a book. Currently, Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, better known as JK Rowling. No real feel for it yet, but I think I know Whodunit. I only get to read about 20 minutes a day :-/

8 Weeks

Big news in this second month of Little Djinn's life: she's started looking at her hands and (drum roll, please), she rolled over! She rolled over for the first time on Thursday when I lay her down for tummy time and went to the loo. That's right, I was out of the room. I came back and she was on her back crying. Later, after she'd nursed and cuddled and was happy again, I set my mobile to record video, lay her down on her tummy and she rolled over so quickly I missed it again. Don't blink around this baby. I took a video which I can't seem to embed. I showed it to Chris (a few times) and Libby, on the bed before us, did a few corkscrews as if to say, "why are you so impressed? This is easy." We're over the moon. She's very close to rolling over from her back to her front and I was convinced she'd get that first but I didn't expect either to happen this soon. I really was completely floored when I returned to find her on her back.

We had our 6 week checkup after my last post and both of us are fine though the doctor wasn't able to hear Little Djinn's heart clearly so we're going back this week and on a different day we're going for her first round of immunizations. The Health Visitor will be out Monday to weight her again and check in. Little Djinn continues to like going for walks in her pram, though the grocery store and back seems to be too far for her patience. She's also lost patience for napping in her basket. She'll still sleep there at night, though she often cries for a bit before settling, but during the day she just won't do it, she'll only sleep on me. So I'm back to not getting much done during the day. On the plus side, she's sleeping 5-8hrs at a stretch and then going back to sleep for another 3hrs so I'm not too sleep deprived. Last week I was getting a bit worn down but she slept for 8hrs and then we took a nap together and my reserves filled back up.
Aged Parent is still in the hospital, no real change there. They think he'll be in hospital for 12 weeks from when they transfer him to the physical rehab hospital so that's a bit of a downer. No word on when a place will open for him.

I finally made Chris' birthday cake, a sticky chocolate pudding with coffee custard (I gave him a baby and he still wanted a cake). It was absolutely delicious, well worth waiting for, and it served eight not the suggested four. I also knit a little cabled hat but it doesn't quite fit over Little Djinn's head - it's big enough around but too short and of course I wove in all the ends before trying it on her. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to try and rip back the extant hat or just start over.

In book news, I'm reading the Shetland Quartet by Anne Cleeves after watching the drama "Shetland", based on the third book Red Bones, the book I'm on now. The adaptation is...curious in what it changed. Detective Perez' girlfriend, out of town in the book, is his dead wife and her young daughter is suddenly his teenage step-daughter. The girl's father is merely referenced in the book but they worked him into the show. They set they adaptation during Up Helly Aa, the fire festival at the end of January (which is when the first book takes place), instead of the spring, but how could they be working on an archaeological dig when the ground is still frozen? I'll find out tonight if they changed Whodunit. Mostly I wonder why they didn't just adapt the first book.

Birth Story

I need to write this down before thousands of years of evolution and my genes' only chance at further replication erase my memory of events completely. If there ever was a post that written with an audience of one in mind, it's this one.

My story really starts on Wednesday the 23rd. I was due on Friday the 18th but for the first time in my pregnancy I was unable to get an appointment for the same week I called and thus my 40 week checkup was almost a 41 week checkup. My midwife looked me over and confirmed that there wasn't even the slightest sign of labour starting. She tried a "cervical sweep"* which sometimes can get things started, but my cervix hadn't come forward at all and was unreachable. Yay.

Thursday morning I woke up around a quarter to 6 on with a wet trickle between my legs. It doesn't feel anything like peeing (except for the warm wet running down your legs) but it does feel a lot like leaking while menstruating. That's the best description I have for what it's like to have one's water break. I'm told that outwith Hollywood, one's water breaking is the first symptom of labour for a relatively small percentage of women and in most cases it breaks or is broken by the midwife when the cervix is already several cm dilated. I am that stereotype.

Chris woke up when I turned the bathroom light on and immediately figured things had started. My waters were clear, no signs of Little Djinn having moved her bowls in utero which can be a sign of fetal distress. I had passed the mucus plug which I had imagined more as a gelatinous plug but clearly the emphasis is on mucus as it looked like something large had cleared its sinuses in my knickers. I cleaned up and changed into clean (dry) clothes and climbed back in bed for our regular morning routine, Chris bringing tea and a satsuma for me and coffee for himself, checking our phones and nattering away until we were ready to get up, only this time with mild but noticeable contractions approximately ever five minutes. The adrenaline of rushing around to get to the hospital can cause labour to halt** so we waited until 7 to call the labour ward (calling the maternity ward first by mistake) and the midwife on duty said to go ahead and come in for an exam. And my contractions magically stopped.

My mother, who is still jet-lagged and not sleeping through the night, saw our light was on and when she heard us get up rushed out to ask us to give her a chance to get ready before going to the hospital. I assured her that she had plenty of time, that we'd not yet called a taxi, and that we wouldn't be doing so until my contractions had established themselves again. Personally we would have preferred to sneak out, leaving the phone and a note with a number to call, but I recognize that sitting in someone else's house twiddling one's thumbs while one's baby has a baby is a much longer day than being there for it, so I let her come and even repeatedly requested (each time we changed rooms) that the one person in attendance rule be bent to allow both Chris and my mother to be present.

After half an hour my contractions started up again, again about 5 minutes apart, so we called a taxi and went to the labour ward where I was examined*** and pronounced to be a mere 2cm dilated. This didn't count as labour. Baring a pressing need they wouldn't examine me again until 12:30 (4 hours later) and not wanting to take taxis back and forth all day I opted to leave my bags (one with stuff for me, one with stuff for Little Djinn) in the room and go to the cantina and wander the hospital for a while. It became clear that my contractions, still five minutes apart, were significantly more painful when sitting than when standing (and that it wasn't possible to switch from sitting to standing when I felt one coming on) so I stood at our table, then paced around it, with frequent trips to the loo to urgently pee an ounce at a time.

We hung out in the cantina as long as we could (past the point when they'd closed after breakfast and hadn't yet opened for lunch) and then took to the halls. I mostly tried to keep walking through the contractions, though I stayed close to the wall and clung to the handrails or Chris' hands as needed. By noon I was exhausted from standing for almost 4 hours and I made the executive decision to return to the labour ward a little early. At this point I didn't realize the was a 4-hours between exams policy and thought the half noon timeline more of a suggestion, a round number, but they let us back into my room, had me pee in a bucket****, and eventually did another round of exams, this time hanging around so she could feel a contraction which was a lot less fun than it sounds. I was still only 2cm (!!!) and one is not considered to be in labour until 4cm so they gently kicked me off of the labour ward and down to the maternity ward and the pre-labour room.

They were serving lunch as we got there, but we'd had second breakfast not long before, and having just arrived I'd not ordered anything but they had me fill out a card for dinner and breakfast the next day, and we waited. My timeline gets a bit fuzzy around here as I wasn't looking at a clock, but not terribly much later my contractions got a lot closer and a lot stronger so that I was having contractions about a minute apart and didn't feel like I'd even relaxed between them before the next one started and they really hurt. I started crying out with the pain (I remember saying "Ow" and "Owie" a lot when trying to breath) and it put a noticeable damper on the ward. Sitting or lying curled up on my side (I can't lie stretched out on my side) hurt more than standing so I stood, braced against a chest of drawers, rising up on tiptoe with each contraction, urgently requesting that we explore my pain killing options. Turns out the only option on the pre-labour ward (and they wouldn't take me back upstairs for another exam until half four, four hours after my last one) after paracetamol/Tylenol is diamorphine but the midwife had to call upstairs to check with the sister on duty***** before she could administer it, and then she was going to explain how it wouldn't effect my being able to use the birthing tub but I cut her off and begged her just to give me the injection already.

It took the promised 10-15 minutes to kick in and here my timeline gets really fuzzy because I was able to lay on my back which reduced the frequency of my contractions and the drugs took the edge off just enough that I could handle it, and had the side effect of letting me fade in and out of consciousness between contractions. And as I faded in, I blurted whatever dream-thought had been in my head, and I knew I was saying things that made no sense such as "but the mice don't like the colour purple" and as soon as I said them I knew, in the small pause that always followed such ejaculations, that they made no sense and I tried to remember what I thought was going on (because that would make it better, right?) and explain but the dreams faded too quickly and I eventually gave up and just went with "sorry."

At the appropriate time I got another exam (almost 3cm but not quite there yet), and dinner showed up and it was a shame I wasn't in a position to do more than pick at it as it was the best meal I got on the ward, and at some point we tried letting me take a bath but the water was warm, not hot, and didn't cover enough of my belly to help so I gave up on that rather quickly. The diamorphine wore off almost exactly four hours after administered, shortly after I inquired how long it would last and could there be more please, but it took a good half an hour after it wore off to get more in me. It must have been around 8:30 when they did another exam and announced that I was 3cm (finally!) and that was far enough along to use the birthing tub so they were going to transfer me back to the labour ward.

That took until almost 10, which was just as well as around 10 is when my diamorphine wore off again and they didn't want me in the tub, even supervised, if I was still fading in and out of consciousness. My mother, up since the day before, and Chris since a bit before 6 that morning, opted to head home and get some sleep after seeing me safely transferred back to the labour ward. They tried to get me to pee in a bucket again but I couldn't unclench. My new midwife, with shift and ward changes I was on my fourth now, examined me again before sending me into the tub and announced that I was 8cm and we should probably call my husband to come back, which we did and he got there just after I got in the tub.

I don't know how long I spent in the tub. My timeline suggests it was somewhere around 11 when I went in and that I was out around 1am, but it doesn't feel like I spent two hours there. I was having trouble not pushing when my contractions came but the midwife said I was probably 10cm by then, she thought I might have been expanding to 9cm while she was examining me earlier, and that if I felt like pushing I could. Being in the tub was nice, it was warm and big and deep, but as I moved into the second stage of labour I didn't feel like I had anything to push against so I got out and we returned to "my" room.

At this point the only painkillers I was allowed, the diamorphine having worn off before going in the tub, was laughing gas which I didn't think was doing anything for me except make me hoarse, but kept using because it was something to do and sometimes you don't realize something was helping until you stop. Anything stronger could make my baby drowsy at birth and then they'd have to give her something to wake her up and possibly take her away for observation so I conceded the point. I was still unable to pee so they stuck a catheter in and drained me, which was I remember was uncomfortable but have no specific memories of. And having officially examined me and measured me at 10cm, I got to take a break and lie down and try and sleep between contractions again for an hour before they, my midwife would be joined by another, asked me to push starting at 2:20am.

It hurt. Worse, I knew it was going to hurt more so I really didn't want to push. I begged them to use the suction cup and pull her out and they just kept telling me I was doing fine. My mother says the worst thing I yelled was "oh, God!" which I remember and she and Chris agree that I occasionally cried when I don't. I started with kneeling and clinging to the back of the bed, then switched to lying on my side, then stood up for a while over the midwives' protests including the request that I at least stand in the middle of the floor (I wanted the rolling chest of drawers/fetal heart monitor to lean on, which they objected to in particular because of the rolling bit). Then I got stuck standing because, again standing made my contractions closer together and stronger and they wanted to check the baby's heartbeat while I was there and it took a fair amount of time before there was a pause in contractions long enough to let me climb back onto the bed and lay on my other side.

Eventually we were crowning (oh, how that hurt - and I got to hold it with her head starting to peak out of me while the midwives got ready, putting aprons on and doing who knows what while I lay there wanting her in or out, but not halfway in between. I did make them fetch a mirror so I could see what was happening a plan somewhat hampered by having taken my glasses off some hours before. But seeing her head helped, even if less was sticking out than I had imagined. They took the mirror away and I pushed and I pushed and my mother says she could see me split but going forward, not back, which isn't something I ever considered, and I felt her slither out and the dumped her slimy little body on my belly and at 4:05am Friday I had my baby.

I held her naked body to my bared skin and we nursed a tiny bit while Chris cut the umbilical cord (which was further trimmed by the midwife), and they gave me a tiny injection to hurry the third stage of labour, the afterbirth, which I didn't feel nor do I recall pushing for, and then they were ready to sew me back up. "It's just a little tear" wound up taking forever to sew up. The second midwife leaned over the first's shoulder and gave pointers on how best to go about it. I ignored the proffered gas and air as I still didn't think it did much for me and a few injections of local anaesthetic, however sensitive the region, wasn't that big a deal. The midwives told me that I was clearly mistaken when I said I was afraid of pain, but I think that's the sort of thing you say to comfort people because a few jabs is nothing compared to 22hrs of unofficial and official labour, including 90 minutes of pushing a watermelon through a lemon. And just when I was thinking it was taking a long time to sew up "a little tearing" the midwives looked up and said that was the muscles done, now they'd do the skin. And when that was done they explained that there was also some "grazing" which hadn't required stitches. Lovely.

I can't remember if they took Little Djinn to clean (though not bathe), weigh and measure her before or after I took my shower, but either way I left her with Chris when I did and he got to do skin to skin, too. At some point we got tea and toast, enough for all three of us (not Little Djinn), and they swaddled Little Djinn in two towels and a cellulose blanket and I wheeled her little cot down to the maternity ward where I was given a bed (and eventually the breakfast I'd ordered the day before) and Chris and my mother had/got to go home and sleep.

~ * ~

* two fingers up my vagina, wiggling them around and because I was pregnant she couldn't even buy me a drink first.

** a very reasonable evolutionary precaution

*** see *

**** a cardboard bedpan placed over the toilet

***** is this an honourary title? Or is she also a nun?

The problem with not blogging...

The problem with not blogging is that not having blogged becomes one more reason not to blog. "I should write something. But where do I start? There's so much to catch up on..." and I find something else to do with my day

The easiest place to start is why I stopped blogging: I'm pregnant. For a while there, it was all I wanted to talk about but I wasn't ready to tell the world yet* so I didn't blog. It's just as well really as it would have been one "Yay, I'm pregnant!" post followed by two and a half months of "I feel so terrible, I've never felt this terrible in my life, I'm constantly nauseas, how could feeling like this have possibly been selected for, oh, I feel terrible." Looking at my computer (or phone, or television) screen made the terrible feelings worse, and knitting gave me headaches (the kind that make one nauseas, of course) so mostly I spent that time in bed reading, and trying to sleep. You weren't missing much.

Around our twelve-week ultrasound (of which I posted a picture but half the internet missed it) I started feeling better. Better is in no way related to "good" mind you, but I was mostly able to spend the day out of bed and had learned how to eat enough, in small portions, to not wish I could have my entire digestive system removed and live on an IV. Computers still made me woozy and knitting was off the agenda, but there was at least reason to hope everyone would be correct about the second trimester being easier. Oh, wow, has it been. I felt good. My skin and hair are doing weird things, my finger and toe nails are growing too fast, but everything else was finally behaving itself. Until a fortnight ago when work went to heck in a handbasket** and I found myself working lots of hours and, oh yeah, that exhaustion and post-nasal drip? Not just pregnancy symptoms*** - after a few days my husband turned to me and said, I feel like you described. I think we're sick. Oddly enough this came as a relief. Being sick meant I wasn't a wimp and Most Pathetic Pregnant Lady Ever. I was really worried that there's no way I'd make it through Christmas at work 'cause when one works in retail Christmas is a big deal. So yeah, being sick was a relief because a cold would go away and I'd feel better. Right? Um, not so much. I was increasingly exhausted for a couple of days, then miserable and congested for a few days, and then I slowly felt better. The exhausted and first of the miserable days were while working, then I had the (English) Bank Holiday weekend off and my rota got changed giving me a few extra days off, and by the time I was back at work I was feeling pretty good. I'd be exhausted about 6hrs into my shift but feel better once I got to sit down and put my feet against a hot water bottle so I was doing okay. On my fourth day of working in a row, I started coughing. Not bad, just a little bit throughout the day. That night, as we were drifting to sleep, I suddenly had a huge racking coughing fit, the kind where I cough so hard I throw up and still can't stop coughing. We eventually got to sleep but I slept restlessly and every time I turned over there was more coughing. Dear Husband reports that I was coughing a lot even when I was asleep, and I woke up feeling fairly terrible.

It got worse through the morning and by noon I was on the phone to the GP, convinced I was having asthma attacks that wouldn't stop. I was on hold for over 10 minutes before someone finally answered (and in panicked tears by that point) and was told to come right there. I got my neighbour to drive me, was seen within minutes and, after a thorough examination, told that it wasn't asthma (which is good, because the oral steroids for treating major asthma attacks are Not Good for developing a developing fetus), it's just a viral infection that's triggering light asthma attacks and I just need to wait it out. Antibiotics, obviously, were out of the question but I was given a script for a preventative steroid inhaler and granted permission to take 6 puffs on my rescue inhaler as needed (previously 2).

The best part was having time to fill the script, eat food for the first time that day, and collect Dear Husband in time to make our twenty-week ultrasound appointment. Part of the panicked tears was needed to get to the ATM to get cash to pay for a taxi to and from the hospital when the buses were against me (half a mile to go and it would take two hours round-trip) and I couldn't breathe and now I also needed money to take a taxi to the GP and I wasn't even sure if I should call the GP or just go straight to A&E (ER). I was a bit of a mess. But it all worked out and we got to the obstetrics ultrasound department 15 minutes early and despite being warned that they were running late we were seen before our appointment time, in an out faster than either of our previous appointments.

And what an amazing appointment it was. We're convinced we got the most talented technician that time as she whipped around Little Djinn's body, measuring bones and brains, blood flow and who knows what all else. We saw all of Little Djinn's bones, even its little spine, and the major organs, got good looks at the limbs and the face. Little Djinn wiggled and waved and was sucking in fluid. I've been able to feel Little Djinn kicking for about a week but being able to see it on the screen is just incredible. I feel very blessed to live in a country where I get these peaks at Little Djinn's development, these reassurances about its health and mine, and its all paid for. I've had three ultrasounds so far with at least another two to come and all I have to pay for are the taxi trips. When I was panicked about not being able to breathe, I got an appointment in minutes and a script and the one thing I wasn't freaking out about was how much it would cost me. When I compare the NHS in Scotland to the US system I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

Two days later and I still feel just as poorly but no longer panicked. The euphoria of seeing Little Djinn held out a few hours against the misery of coughing. Its picture is in a place of honour on the mantel and I even cast on a new baby sweater.

~ * ~

* Our window cleaner did that for us. We told Aged Parent, Aged Parent told Window Cleaner and he told, as near as we can tell, everyone he knew. After the first couple of people responded to the announcement with "yeah, Window Cleaner told me. Congratulations" we stopped telling people.

** not in a FUBAR way, just in a confluence of events leading to staffing issues way

*** though they are pregnancy symptoms. I have trouble believing how random pregnancy symptoms can be. I swear people got drunk, took all the pages out of a symptom diagnosis book, and threw trimester-coloured darts at them to get this random collection of ways gestating can make one feel poorly

My Father

So much to catch up on. I mentioned back in January (yeah, it's been like that) that my father was in the hospital. While Chris and I were on our honeymoon, my parents made their annual retired persons pilgrimage to Somewhere Warm* and it was a Mexico year. My father got the flu, was very sick, and after about a week allowed my mother to take him to a hospital where they x-ray'd his chest, diagnosed him with pneumonia and treated him accordingly. My mother called Kaiser (their HMO) and arranged for him to be medevac'd to their closest hospital, in San Diego**. Because this was an international, privately chartered flight, it took a while to set up and get him transferred.

Once at Kaiser, they wanted to do an MRI but my father was in too much pain to lie down so they concentrated on sedating him. Meanwhile a nurse helped my mother check into the closest hotel she could think of and sent my mother to eat something and try and get some sleep. That night my father had a heart attack. They revived him, which is to say got his heart pumping, and finally got him in for an MRI where it was discovered that he'd ruptured his oesophagus and it wasn't his lungs that were full of liquid, it was his entire chest cavity.

My mother had left my father's iPhone as her contact information, but hadn't thought to turn it on - not that it would've made any difference as my father had racked up a $600 (data) phone bill using it in Mexico and AT&T did the reasonable thing under the circumstances and shut off service. Fortunately the nurse remembered which hotel my mother was at and the hotel sent someone to knock on her door.

My father had a couple of surgeries: repairing his oesophagus, adding stints to drain the foreign matter (food and liquids) in his chest and fluid from his body going septic, placing a feeding tube in his intestine. My brother Johnny got leave from the Army and flew down to San Diego to be with my mother***. He was able to get my email address from his wife and let me know (disjointedly) that our father was in a hospital, in a coma.

A week later, there had been no improvement. Johnny had had to go back to work after a few days so my mother's brother, Jim, drove out from New Mexico to be with her for a few days, then her sister, Kathleen, flew down from Alaska. My father had signed a DNR but Kaiser in Southern California doesn't share records with Kaiser in Northern California**** and my mother wanted him revived when they thought it was pneumonia. But it had been over a week and my father wasn't responding at all, not even to being poked with pointy objects, so my mother asked a neighbour to get the copy of the DNR out of the safe and fax it down (not that, as his wife, she needed it) and she had the feeding tube removed and the breathing machine disconnected and he passed away the following morning, on February 9th. He was 71 years old.

~ * ~

* In their retirement they invested in a time share, the kind where you have points and can pick from a number of destinations on the Pacific side of the US, Mexico and Canada. They've gone to Hawaii or Mexico once a year since.

** Over 500 miles from my parents' house, car, and support network.

*** Johnny pretended to be my father (John) when calling AT&T so my mother could have a working phone - apparently there was a $30 roaming bundle my father could have purchased to prevent the $600 in fees which they kindly applied retroactively. Johnny also taught my mother how to use the iPhone enough to read (but not send) emails and make phone calls.

**** Not keeping them in the same database makes sense - that would be huge to the point of unweildy - but not being able to access them at all?

Sweaters Intimidate Me

My miss-givings about knitting a sweater are less about the technical construction (though the idea of having to do the maths and worry about fit do intimidate me) than the fear that after all that time and effort* it won't fit or, whether it fits or not, it won't be flattering. Add to that a lifetime's desire to be thinner and fear of getting rotund-er and knitting a sweater seems destine to be a source of regret.

One of my goals in life, not a New Year's Resolution, is to love myself for who I am rather than holding out for a better version of me, one more worthy of love. Assuming there is a static goal-line one can cross and believe that now, finally, now one is worthy of love and happiness and acceptance (both observational and personal experience inclines me to think there is not), even if such a prize were achievable, I personally respond very badly to such negative incentives. I get very stubborn when told I can't or shouldn't do things. I'm sure you're all shocked to hear I can be so contrary, but I really dig my heels in and become "[as biddable] as any mule in Christian-dome".

My weight has, without particular effort on my part, been stable these past six weeks. That's not a considerable length of time, but it does seem to indicate that this is a weight my body is comfortable with and thus a shape I'm willing to throw time and effort at. I always prefer to wear quality clothing and shapes that flatter, but it's hard to justify investing in a wardrobe rather when one doesn't know if one will continue to lose or start to regain**.

But even if my shape changes, I can't keep waiting for tomorrow. This is the year I start knitting sweaters and if they don't fit in a year or five years, well I'll knit more sweaters. And I'll be a better sweater knitter in a year and I'll keep this sweater for when I pass through this weight again***.

~ * ~

* the cost of the yarn, aside from the initial investment, doesn't bother me as a bad sweater could always be frogged and the yarn repurposed.

** for the curious I am neither at my lowest nor my heaviest, but after gaining 2lbs/1kilo for the last five months this six week platform seems significant.

*** I tend not to follow trends, preferring a 1940s aesthetic, so I'm not worried about styles becoming unfashionable.

There are workmen in my living room

Chris and I decided, after getting married last June, that we'd take the money people gave us and have a fireplace installed in the lounge. The house had one when he moved in but it wasn't very good and, after he bought it from his landlady, he had the fireplace removed. Fast-forward to having someone with whom to cuddle in front of a fire and a better fireplace seems the thing to have.

We did some research, picked a design, had a consultation and made a down-payment back in September and finally, finally, today they're starting. I said I wanted a fireplace before it started to snow and the weather seems to be cooperating. Yay?

Anyway, there are workmen in my living room and it's rather nosy (understatement) in the house today. Ginger Kitty is hiding under the duvet in our bedroom but Princess occasionally comes just far enough down the stairs to peer through the railing and see what's going on.

Speaking of Princess, she's poorly again. We ran out of the last bag of food and started a new one (a different flavour, turkey - we always switch when we finish a bag) and she ate fine Monday night but then on Tuesday she stopped eating. The brand we use switches kibble shape with flavour so I bought different food (chicken) for her in case it was the shape she didn't like but she wouldn't eat that either (though Ginger Kitty decided that whatever Princess had must be better than what he has* and refused to eat until we gave him the chicken stuff but now he won't eat until he's sure there's not something better he could have instead). We gave them some tuna because Princess hadn't eaten anything all day and got her to eat a small portion.

The next day I suggested we feed her some of the kitten food (also chicken) we still have as it's small kibble and easy to chew and she ate a little bit but then turned her nose up the rest of the day, even refusing to drink tuna water when offered. Chris was beside himself at this point, googling symptoms right and left - never a good idea - and I bought a bag of fish-flavoured kibble in case it was the flavour she was objecting too and she eat a few pieces but gave up on that as well.

Princess is not a large cat to start with - only 3.3kilos on the best of days - and she's never been a good eater but she wasn't acting like her normal finicky self. She'd get excited any time we walked near the food bowls and bark encouragingly if we stopped to fill them up but then she'd change her mind and scoot away and look like the saddest, hungriest kitty in the world. Normal, finicky Princess would be completely indifferent to food.

I held her with her mouth open while Chris looked for ulcers or tooth decay but we didn't see anything. She still wasn't eating though, so I took her to the vet. She meowed piteously when I put her in her carrying case and the whole taxi ride over but when the vet let her go and she'd decided she'd had enough of a cuddle with me she hopped back in and was mostly quiet on the ride home. Poor Princess. The vet found some inflammation around some of her back teeth but no fever (Princess really didn't like that part), no pained reactions to having her tummy poked and prodded, and no signs of dehydration. We're unaware of anything she may have eaten or licked to cause problems (eating parsley, the vet said, is odd but not harmful). The vet gave Princess a shot each of antibiotics and steroids, scheduled an appointment to get Princess' teeth cleaned on Monday**, and sent us home with a couple tins of "yummy" gentle gushy food and oral antibiotics. The antibiotics, of course, have to be administered with food. "Just squirt it on her food!" they helpfully kept advising me, somehow missing the point of why were were there.

Chris tried her on the new gushy food last night with some success until she realized that Ginger Kitty was nowhere to be seen and came upstairs to find him, locked in the bedroom with me. We tried her again later, with tuna for Ginger Kitty, and he went om-nom-nom-nom but she wouldn't eat and kept looking at his food. I snagged a chunk of tuna from Ginger Kitty's bowl and offered it to her, but Chris smeared it with her gushy food and she still wouldn't eat it. I took Ginger Kitty's entire bowl away from him** and gave it to Princess who promptly face planted. I gave the gushy-smeared tuna to Ginger Kitty and he stopped giving me Saddest Kitty in the World eyes and ate with gusto.

That's about where things stand now. Princess doesn't want to eat the gushy food (or any of the kibble) but will occasionally deign to a small portion of tuna and sooner or later Ginger Kitty eats anything we leave unguarded. The vet suggested giving her a little ice cream as a treat; we'll pick some up when we go out tonight and see if that helps at all.

~ * ~

* a position he maintains even when have the same food.

** her teeth are in good shape, but some animals react badly to even the slightest build-up of plaque. We'll see if that helps.

*** I love my mellow Ginger Kitty so much.

Learning to Crochet

Since last I posted my knitting progress has been, um, this side of non-existent. I managed to cut my middle finger in a small cooking incident of the "I can't believe I was so stupid" variety on Thursday. These are the times I'm really glad that 1. I'm not a bleeder and 2. I've never nicked an artery (I'm pretty sure that would nudge the "average blood loss per incident" numbers a bit to the left). I didn't feel it required stitches, being more of a flaying than severing injury and between pressure and immobilizing the knuckle, it sealed itself. Today is my first day without a plaster/band-aid and flexibility doesn't appear to be impaired. I keep wiggling it to make sure I don't develop tight scar tissue. It's visibly swollen but doesn't hurt* unless I poke it. "So don't poke it!" I hear you yell. That's all well and good except, if it wasn't a part of my digit that I use, I probably wouldn't have cut it. It turns out, I use the front side of that finger to stabilize a lot of things, not the least of which is my left knitting needle.

I made it about 8hrs (not counting when I was asleep) before I couldn't stand the sitting idly and picked up my (beautiful beautiful beautiful) current sock project and tried knitting without using the injured digit. It went...awkwardly. I probably would've pushed through, as slow and encumbered as it was, except every couple of stitches my vigilance would slacken, my middle finger would try to participate, and it'd end stabbing pain and Sailor-itis of the Language. Not my best 20 minutes. Knitting wasn't any better than sitting idly and swimming and baking were right out, so I decided to Learn to Crochet.

Now, I understand the basic theory of crochet (1.create a loop, 2. use hook to pull yarn through loop creating a new loop, 3. repeat step 2) and Once Upon a Time, say 20 years ago, I was taught to make granny squares and got a fair way into a blanket though until it became increasingly obvious** that crocheting an afghan in a 40C/100F degree summer wasn't the best idea ever. By the time I picked it up again I was a little shaky on the details and I hated the colours and acrylic-ness of the yarn I was using so it went back into the closet.

Part of my reluctance to learn crochet is my association with acrylic yarn and bad 70s styling. Every time I see a granny-square waistcoat/vest I want to recycle my alumin(i)um needles. I think crochet is brilliant for making stuffed toys and afghans but otherwise has few redeeming features. One of those redeeming features, however, is that I can do it without using my poorly finger. I picked a pattern and every time it used a term I didn't recognize (which was pretty much everything after "chain" and "single crochet") I looked it up online and kept at it till I had something resembling the pictures.

I started with a lacy cowl using rainbow yarn but it was too small so I frogged it and made a different cowl with the rainbow yarn. It's finished other than weaving in ends and adding buttons but it's (ahem) too small so I doubt I'll ever bother. Yesterday I made a third cowl, based on the first two, and it fits but is rolling so I'll probably frog it as well. While none of my projects have been perfect, I'm confident that I've got the basics down and want to turn my attention to small toys.

* though the nerve sensations if I touch it gently are really bizarre and disconcerting

** get it? The blanket was increasing in size and becoming increasingly warm and....never mind.