Holidays
We had a *fantastic* Thanksgiving here in Nederland! We’ve got a standing invitation to the Dexters’, but this Thanksgiving they were in California. =( So we held our own celebration! With food that WE cooked! And NOBODY died of food poisoning!
Ben prepares to brine the turkey:
Laura cooked up some fresh cranberry sauce:
Working on the salad. With my shades. Dorky but neccessary … it’s bright in the kitchen!
We made green beans.
Laura also made TWO pies. She’s amazing! (The pies received excellent reviews, too.)
We grilled the turkey. Or, rather, Ben did. =)
We had an impressive array of food to pass around.
Even more food.
Zamba getting in the way!
“I can help you with that spoon/with the scraps/with ANYTHING!”
Here are the Top 10 Things I’m thankful for this weekend (update: Sorry I’ve been so sluggish with blog entries!):
10. A bedroom free of dog poo! Zamba’s stomach seems to have recovered from it’s upset last month (October — and still going strong!), which is FANTASTIC!!!
9. Chaco “the Dog”.
8. Zamboni-Roni.
7. Ben.
6. Our parents.
5. Our sisters.
4. Our church family.
3. Food that doesn’t make me barf. (I made it through Thanksgiving dinner just fine! Leftovers, however, were another story.)
2. Friends. Thanks for coming over, Michael, Alan, and Laura!
And, drumroll please …
1. Bemis! The seventeen-week-old parasite growing inside me feels like a little miracle. I can’t wait until he’s HERE!!!
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At the beginning of December, I had another appointment with my OB and … drumroll, please … some prenatal testing!
Me at about 11 weeks:
The OB appointment was pretty dull. “How are you feeling?” Nurse Leslie asked me.
“OK,” I answered her and then sneezed. “Except for my nose. Is a drippy nose a pregnancy symptom? Mine runs all the time! I swear I’m not sick!”
“It can be,” she replied. Great. I’ve got another six months of this snot-infested congestion? And I’m not allowed to take any medicine? That sucks!
“Now, let’s see if we can hear a heartbeat.” I got up on the table and Leslie spent a good ten minutes going over my stomach with the Doppler machine. The only heartbeat I heard was my own. I was about to start crying. Leslie pulled my pants down about two inches, though, and gave it one more good go … and I heard it. 160 bpm of baby goodness!
After I’d gone over a few other things with Leslie (namely, if the baby needs a C-section, I want you to do it — please don’t wimp out because you’re worried about me — and breastfeeding, which I can do!), I headed over to prenatal testing. Ben went down to financial counseling to argue with them for a little bit, which would’ve been fine if the prenatal testing people hadn’t taken me back to the conference room as soon as I walked in.
The first person I talked to was a genetic counselor, and I was really impressed! She explained what they were testing for: Down’s syndrome, trisomy 18, and spina bifida, mostly. She also asked if I wanted a cystic fibrosis genetic test, which costs $280. My initial reaction was “Sure, let’s go for it!” but then I decided I better wait until Ben returned from the financial dungeon. Sure enough, he looked smugly at the paper describing the test and asked, “Why would we do this?”
“I think so that we’re prepared to have a kid who’ll die when he’s twenty. And so that we can find a pediatric pulmonologist and stuff like that.”
“No. That’s stupid. Let’s see if insurance pays for it.”
“But –”
“No.” Geez louise. Remind me not to rely on a ride from Ben when he comes to bed at 4:30 in the morning! Even if it means he doesn’t get to see the ultrasound!
Which was next. The genetic counselor escorted us to the room and an ultrasound tech entered shortly thereafter, followed by a student. She dripped the goo on my stomach and a second later, there was Bemis, somersaulting around in there like an Olympic gymnast. The tech took her measurements and printed us out a couple of pictures and then she disappeared.
Bemis at 10 weeks!
An annotated rendition of Bemis’ 10 week ultrasound. He’s adorable, isn’t he? I was a little bit surprised how small his brain is at this point, but the tech assured me that’s totally normal.
The doctor arrived shortly thereafter. “There’s one thing I have to talk to you about,” he said at the end of his brief spiel. “The nuchal cord diameter that the tech measured was
“Can you tell us the standard deviations of your measurement and the dangerous diameter?” I asked.
“I don’t know those,” the doctor answered honestly. I started to cry. “What I need to know is if you’d like to pursue further testing.” I glanced at Ben.
“Isn’t the miscarriage rate of amniocentesis pretty high?” he asked.
“About 2 – 3%,” the doctor answered.
“No thanks,” I told him. Goodness gracious. First of all, it strikes me as bizarre that the doctor doesn’t know the error on the ultrasound. Isn’t that, like, important when the diameter that they measure using the ultrasound is so close to the dangerous diameter? What percentage of people with a nuchal cord diameter of 2.6 cm go on to have Down’s Syndrome? HOW COULD HE NOT KNOW THAT? Second of all, I think that they run a pretty good scam on parents-to-be. Every parent-to-be is going to be nervous when told that their baby is likely to have a serious disease, and many of them will agree to more testing, which earns the doctor more money. Not me!
FWIW, my mom was told by HER doctor that *I* was at high risk for mental retardation because my head was so small. Not only am I perfectly normal (well, pre-stroke), but my head was HUGE. Like, 99th percentile huge. So, while I don’t take the doctor’s warning lightly, I’m not going to freak out about it.
Then, somebody came in and asked me to participate in her study to determine a corellation between protein markers in your blood and birth defects. “Sure!” I responded. “I’d love to help.” She told me about the three tubes of blood she’d take when I interrupted her. “I should tell you that I’m a hard stick. If you can’t get it from the same draw as the
genetic testing, I’m not interested in y’all mining for more. I’m not a big fan of needles.” She agreed. THEN, she asked me if I was on any medication. Ben groaned.
“Here’s where you decide that you’re suddenly not so interested in using her as a subject anymore.” I read off my list of medications, and the research lady dutifully wrote them down, but I could tell that I was out of contention.
“… and Flintstones vitamins,” I finished up.
“You’re not on prenatals?” she asked in shock.
“The Folgard contains enough folic acid that I’m told I’m covered,” I assured her.
Then, I was released to the care of the nurse. “Why don’t you have a seat right here,” she said kindly, “and I’ll draw your blood.” I gave her my usual spiel about it being fairly difficult to find, and she agreed to try only once before recruiting an expert. I really hate when people say that; if you’re not an expert, don’t try! It really is difficult to find! Trust me!
Of course, she couldn’t get it, so after one painful puncture she went to get somebody else. After a couple minutes of fruitless searching (read: excruciating twisting of the needle under my skin), she got a flash; I was only two needles down. I suspected Ben might fall out on me, but he didn’t. We walked out of the office together in one piece.
We went home via the hibachi restaurant, so I was happy. =)
Me at 12 weeks:
Me at 13 weeks:
16 weeks:
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I had a good visit with my parents just before Christmas! They arrived on Thursday, and we had a nice, relaxing visit until the following day, when we opened gifts. Santa Claus brought me a Kindle! It’s fantastic! I love it! My first purchase was “It Sucked and Then I Cried,” by Heather Armstrong, author of dooce.com. It is HILARIOUS. If you’d like to read some funny, touching, sad, and honestly raw material about pregnancy, you need to get this book. It is that much more relevant to me because Heather suffers from depression; I was curious how she handled it with a baby. I won’t spoil the ending, but … it’s entertaining. And you should know that she recently had a second child, and everything went much smoother the second time around.
Mom and Dad unwrapped their (literally) big present from us, a framed print of some aspens in the fall. Ben took it this autumn.
Then, Mom unwrapped HER big present: tickets to see “Little House on the Prairie” the musical in Denver! So, on Saturday, we all piled into Ben’s car and drove to the theater, stopping en route to get some supper at Larkburger. (I thought it was an odd choice, but they do serve vegan fare in addition to burgers, so everybody was satisfied.) We didn’t get home until 11:30pm that night; we went to bed right away to get up for church at 7:30am on Sunday morning. Ben performed in NCPC’s Christmas Cantata — a sermon told though song — and then he drove my folks to the airport.
I was exhausted.
I came home after church, cleaned the house (well, OK, our housekeeper cleaned while I watched TV — it’s the closest I get to a nap), and tried to recover from our late night because the Brantleys were coming the next day!
We picked them up around 4:30pm at the bus station and headed up for a spaghetti dinner at our house. There were a lot of them: Mom and Dad, Jessica and her fiance, Tommy, and her three year old son, Caden. They’d been up since 3am South Carolina time — 1am our time — and they were exhausted, too. And in some cases, cranky.
After a yummy dinner and some temper tantrums, we went to bed, hoping that the next day would shine a little bit brighter with more sleep. And it did! We drove to Georgetown for a surprise trainride with Santa. Caden was good the entire time! He was also adorable … he loves trains.
Eating a cookie on Grandma’s lap on the train. Life doesn’t get much better than that!
Smile! It’s Mrs. Claus!
Jessica and Tommy pose with Mr. Claus himself!
Caden really liked opening presents. This particular one was Tommy’s, but … that’s all details.
Caden had lots of fun with his snow plow from Ben. It’s about 10 degrees outside in this picture, but weather never stops the plow.
Chaco and Zamboni fight over the monkey they got in their stocking. And no, Jake wasn’t amused.
Mom and Ben tend to the turkey, cooked the same way as on Thanksgiving.
We served dinner to a record 16 people on Christmas Day. Goodness gracious, was that a lot! And it was tasty, too, just … that’s a lot of people. Not the best thing for a stroke brain like mine to hang around, pregnant, until 3:30 pm, waiting to be allowed to dig in. But I got to see a lot of Ben’s cousins, some of whom I hadn’t met before, and everybody had a good time chatting and catching up with one another, so it was still a win.
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At 7:30 pm on Christmas evening, we got a call from California. It was my sister, Kimberly. She spoke to Ben, who picked up the phone.
“Hey, Ben! I’ve got some … unexpected news.” He immediately got me on the phone as well. “So I woke up at 3:30 this morning with some contractions, and they didn’t stop. We went to the hospital around 10:30 am and our baby boy was born at 4:30 this afternoon! He’s a month early, but he’s very healthy. He weighs 6 pounds, 11 ounces, he’s eating well, and he’s adorable.”
“Wow.” That’s about all I could say. A Christmas baby! His name is Remington Malakai Scott, “Remy” for short, and he is indeed beautiful — and a miracle. I’m glad Kim’s safe, too; she delivered early because she had an abruption, which is when the placenta detaches prematurely from the uterine wall. It often results in excessive bleeding; she had none, for which I am extremely glad. I don’t want one of those!
Remington Malaki Scott, taken on Christmas Day by Lori Davis:
I’m planning a trip out there sometime in the next month. I can’t wait to see him!
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We enjoyed New Year’s Eve at Susan’s new house, complete with our puppies! Chaco didn’t have such a good time, however; he got really annoyed at Tiki’s flirting, and when it was time to go, he was like, “Put the leash on me and get me OUT of here!” Poor Chaco. He’s such a serious dog. 8)
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One more doctor’s visit to go.
We didn’t have an appointment until January 21, which was 7 weeks out from our last appointment. That’s three weeks longer than the once-a-month routine they prescribe, which was fine with me, but apparantly not with the docs. When I called to complain that no doc in Boulder would co-manage my care, the nurse I spoke with noticed my appointment schedule and immediately set me up with an appointment two days away — on January 6.
For all her rushed appointment making, it was incredibly stupid. We had a 3:30pm appointment. We left here at 2pm. We arrived, on time, at 3:30. Guess when the doctor walked in: 3:45? 4:00? Nope. 4:30pm. And did she do anything useful or cool? Nope. She measured my stomach. With a TAPE MEASURE. She listened to the fetal heartbeat. She didn’t even time it to see how fast it was!
We were out of there by 4:45pm, but it took us forever to get home — at 8 o’clock, we finally waltzed in the door. At least the dogs held it. I’m not looking forward to the more frequent visits we’re sure to have in the future. This arrangement kind of sucks.