I'll take my chances with tuberculosis, thanks

Wonder what could make a woman in her last couple weeks of pregnancy say such a thing? Keep reading...

Sunday morning, an emaciated homeless man with a cough that sounded like he'd accidentally inhaled a pine cone showed up in the lobby of where our church family meets. Knowing that just being treated like a human being can do wonders for your health, I chatted with him for a bit as a friend and I helped him up, got him to a couch, and got him something to drink.  He had an arm full of hospital bracelets and a shopping bag full of medications with which they'd discharged him, so we set out to help him sort them for dosing. During the process, we found in his discharge papers that he'd been diagnosed with tuberculosis and was contagious.

Not the kind of thing you want to learn about someone with whom you've been in close proximity for more than twenty minutes... especially when you're pregnant. Laid back as I try to be about most things, you'll understand why this particular issue got me worried for my baby. Was there a way to find out immediately whether I'd been infected? Was there a vaccine I could get that would help if I had been exposed?

The operator who answered my doctor's after-hours line couldn't tell me whether my circumstance constituted an emergency or not, and stated flatly that she could only page him for an emergency. The nurse who answered the 24-Hour Nurse Line on the back of my insurance card asked me a painfully long string of pointless questions about what symptoms I was  experiencing [despite my having reiterated several times that I couldn't possibly have symptoms from an exposure that had happened only moments prior]. She then put me on hold for several minutes before coming back on the line to tell me that based on the symptoms I'd described (?!) I needed to get to the nearest emergency room.

In the ER, the triage nurse asked only a few questions about me and a myriad of them about the infected man I'd only just met. "So, what exactly were you doing with a homeless man? What do you mean, he was in your church? You let sick people in your church?" [Well gosh, I almost snapped, *we* don't have a triage nurse to screen people before we let them in. Instead,] I gave her an unmistakable are-you-kidding-me look and replied, "We don't keep anybody out of our church." The questions I couldn't answer kept coming in rapid-fire succession until -- so help me -- she asked, "Do you know his doctor's name?"

I couldn't help it -- I laughed at her, out loud. At that point, the interrogation ceased. Now, I wish what she'd said next was, "you probably aren't infected, and there isn't anything we can do right now if you are, so go home." That would have spared me the afternoon-long ordeal I was about undergo. Instead, she uttered the fateful words, "I'll just need to take your blood pressure, and we'll be done."

Much to no one's surprise, after my string of infuriatingly useless conversations with paid healthcare professionals, my blood pressure was elevated. I was almost immediately called back to a room -- not because they were the least bit worried that I'd contracted tuberculosis, but because my reading had them worried I was on the brink of preeclampsia. I was only in the ER long enough to get a once-over and get warned, "if your blood pressure doesn't come down, we're going to have to take you up to labor and delivery"... right before they took another [predictably atrocious] reading. 

Before I finally escaped got discharged early Sunday evening, I'd spent hours restricted to a hospital bed so as not to disrupt the pair of sensors to which I was strapped or the blood pressure cuff that took a new reading from my arm every fifteen minutes;  I'd peed in a cup for neither fun nor profit, and I'd been stabbed in the finger and both arms for blood samples. I was only "allowed" to leave after several of my readings were back in the acceptable range (it's so cute when they say that, like they'd have any recourse if just I shot them the finger and kept walking), and even then, only on the promise that I'd put myself on bedrest until I could see my doctor the next morning. 

Given that I knew the day's readings were little more than a result of the fiasco I'd been through -- and not one to be a letter-of-the-law kind of girl --  I didn't give much thought to going to a friend's football party that night for actual relaxation in lieu of traditional bedrest. (My doctor, who summed up the situation the same way I did, had a good laugh about that when I saw him the next morning.)

And some people still wonder why I don't like hospitals...

Signs of Life, Seeds of Hope - Part Deux

A quick update: the past several days have seen my basil and chive sprouts go from being barely visible to becoming nearly one centimeter tall -- and they're not the only ones who've undergone a one-centimeter change this week...  :)

That's right, I've begun to dilate! It isn't a sign that Sugar Bean is coming this week or anything, but it is a promising indicator that my body remembers what to do, and that my chances of going into labor on my own (rather than having to go through another chemical induction) may be better than I'm currently allowing myself to hope.

As always... stay tuned.

Signs of Life, Seeds of Hope

Can I be [even more] candid [than usual] with you?

I've been plagued lately by fears that I may unwittingly be doing something that could adversely affect my little Sugar Bean's development, the conditions in my womb, or our chances of a non-surgical birth. The results from all my tests and checkups should convince me otherwise, I know... but considering I've felt like a tiny paper boat adrift in a sea of my own hormones for months now, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it's taking more effort than usual to align my perceptions with reality.

Fortunately, good tidings of reassurance have come to me, and in a most simple and lovely way at that...

It was two years ago this week that I started my first compost pile. In the blog entry I wrote to commemorate the occasion, I noted that it was probably one of the best garden-y things I could do, since with my black thumb -- the power to kill even fake plants --  the only thing I could probably ever grow is... frustrated with my efforts.

Well, recently I've been reading some of Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change and was struck by what he had to say about "framing stories" -- the things we believe about ourselves and others that set the stage for many of our failures and successes. I was both convicted and liberated as I realized that my deeply-rooted beliefs about my own inability to grow things might be all that was holding me back. Curiously enough, that moment of clarity came the same day I discovered several small plastic-lined packets of herb seeds tucked into a stack of clay pots a friend gave me. 

Biting my lip in a moment of indecision, I then had a glorious realization: even though the seeds might only have a one percent chance of sprouting under my inexperienced care, that was still a better chance than they had if I never opened the packets at all. With eager but unsteady hands, I planted some basil and chive seeds in starter pots, watered them generously, and set them on the patio table to do whatever they could.

Not quite a week has passed, and today I finally saw that both pots have tiny sprouts emerging from the soil. The seeds, blissfully unaware of how inept I've been at keeping already-established plants alive, have germinated.

Now then, for the humbling but really lovely part: after I'd done my little happy dance around the patio, I noticed that the packet containing the other half of the basil seeds -- which I'd set aside for a second attempt, in case I utterly botched the first one -- had been blown from the table and gotten damp in the recent shower. Unfolding the top and peeking in, I grinned sheepishly as I discovered that they too had germinated... without the "benefit" of all the fussing I'd done over the other ones. I'd merely opened the packet, and nature -- as it was designed to do -- had taken care of the rest.

I gladly learned the unmistakable lesson I was being taught: that although it's good to do what you can, I can only do so much... and after that, I have to trust that God has more than enough experience in making things grow to bring forth life despite my best efforts and my shortcomings.

So keep growing, little basil. Keep growing, little chives. Keep growing, little Sugar Bean. I'll see each of you in due time.

Of Pots And Kettles

[As you may have noticed if you were looking for it,] I have generally avoided addressing politics -- in partisan fashion, anyway -- on my blog. On the whole, I intend to continue that pattern. I have to tell you, though, that a few days ago a political debate erupted between two people I love... and I don't know which is worse: that the first person was defending the choice to vote for Obama using unsubstantiated claims, or that the other, after pointing out the lack of evidence behind those assertions, made a case against Obama using equally groundless "facts."

If I were to begin writing a children's book tonight, I would have to call it The Adventures of Mister Pot and Miss Kettle. I don't know whether it would make more people laugh than cry, though; moreover, I suck something awful at drawing. So let's just table that idea for now.

Besides the usual things that separate the donkeys from the elephants, this election is also rife with issues that would have guests on Jerry Springer taking off their earrings and throwing chairs. It's sure to be an interesting race, and the only thing I can say about it with confidence is this: come November, barring some unforeseen coup d’état, one of the people running for president is going to be elected. With that in mind, dear reader, I'm asking you -- no, begging you -- to double-check your sources and get the facts straight (as straight as they ever get in Washington, anyway) before you cast your vote.

As a slightly smaller favor, if you're any better at drawing than I am, please let me know if you'd be interested in illustrating a children's book...

Unremarkable (That's a Good Thing)

Just realized I haven't said much about my pregnancy here lately. That's largely due to the fact that a) I've remained incredibly busy with preparations for my daughter's arrival, and b) this pregnancy, in terms of medical issues, has been blissfully uncomplicated compared to my last one.

Last time, I was entering my seventh month or so when I was transferred to the care of an OB and discovered my blood sugars and blood pressure had been out of control for God only knows how long before it was diagnosed. I can understand, then, why they handled me like a grenade with the pin missing in the remaining weeks between when I started on medications and when they delivered my son.

This time, being much better informed and being proactive about my medical care is evidently paying off. Learning things I could do to support healthy blood pressure has undoubtedly played a big part in my numbers being as great as they are -- a cool 110/80 at today's visit. I also made an absolute nuisance of myself until someone conceded to let me start taking insulin before I [inevitably] bombed a glucose tolerance test, and I have an enviable A1C (5.5%, for those of you who keep score) to show for it. So although my little kickboxer's skull, femur and ribcage measurements are all weeks ahead of the average baby, we can know beyond doubt that it's just because she's going to be an amazon woman like her mommy and not because of uncontrolled gestational diabetes.

My mind still hasn't fully been able to process the fact that I'm not high-risk this time -- as evidenced by the fact that I can't keep from asking my OB's staff whether they need another blood or pee sample from me. (They're always very understanding and gently remind me again that unless there's a problem, they don't need to do those at every visit.)

Yes, I do have greater challenges ahead. The belief among some hospitals' labor and delivery staff that a woman my size is too out of shape and/or lazy to push out a baby means that Mister Nygren and I may be the only people there who aren't secretly harboring the belief that I'm just a repeat cesarean waiting to happen. Moreover, even hospitals that do allow women to attempt a VBAC delivery must -- because of liability, among other things -- put any number of stipulations on her labor that can greatly reduce the chances of success she might have had otherwise.

But in the words of Scarlett O' Hara, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow." In the meantime, I shall enjoy the fertility-goddess figure that my protruding belly has given me and remind myself that this is the one instance where it's actually a very good thing for a woman to be called "unremarkable."