life
Monday, November 30, 2009
thanksgiving and a very scary birthday
thanksgiving has come and gone, and another weekend has blazed on by. i think i successfully convinced others i was having the lancaster wine, by always having a semi-filled glass of langers grape juice. it was nice to be with family and always exhausting at the same time, even though the cooking responsibilites were unequally weighted by the fong men. i made the pumpkin pie cake and the flower arrangements which always take twice as long to make as i allot. i was so tried that day.
i'm so tired every day.
on friday we slept in and putzed around the house and went to belinda's for dinner. ian's family came over and we had almost another thanksgiving at belin's. saturday was big affair, complete with the gilroy outlets and gilroy gardens. all was pretty much fine (a little dizzy on the rides, went on one jerky roller coaster) until we went back to the outlets and i had to go the bathroom. and then there was blood.
it wasn't much, but enough to cause concern, and poor brian was really stressed out when i told him before dinner. he was looking things up on his iphone and i was trying my best not to get too concerned. dinner was a bust, because i was totally distracted and stressed and the food was much too spicey for me anyways. when we got home, we did a little research, which i think made brian feel better but did not put me at ease.
my birthday gift
i couldn't sleep the night before my bday. a lot of anxiety, and guilty thoughts were invading the spaces in the head. throughts like, maybe i should have said something to my family, maybe i shouldn't have ridden on that roller coaster, etc.
in the morning, brian asked if he should leave a message for the women's clinic, and i thought that it couldn't hurt. surprisingly enough the doctor called back right away and had us come in at 12:30. it's very diffcult to not be anxious, when every fiber of your being is on edge.
i took a long shower, got dressed and packed my purse. I wore the rings from brian, my new earrings from my parents, wore scarf from brian's parents, brought cards from kathy and christine, and had my card from isabella. All physical forms of love and good luck from family and friends were with me that day. it was eerie at the clinic, with only brian, dr. shaub and me, but it was pretty exhilarating to see our first ultrasound. at first i couldn't look. what if there wasn't anything there? the resolution of the ultrasound seemed like dot matrix printer from the late eighties. i had a sweaty death grip on brian's hand and was fixated on the screen. i wish i could have seen brian's expression, but i was so fixated on the screen. what the hell is on the screen? and there it was.
this tiny, beating piece of rice. 1 mm small, yet the magnitude of importance is unparalleled. what an unforgettable birthday this year.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
1367
Component Your Value Standard Range Flag
Quantitive Beta hCG 1367 0-6 mIU/mL H
Gestational Age Expected HCG
0-1 Week 5-50
1-2 Weeks 50-500
2-3 Weeks 100-5,000
3-4 Weeks 500-10,000
4-5 Weeks 1,000-50,000
5-6 Weeks 10,000-100,000
6-8 Weeks 15,000-200,000
2-3 Months 10,000-100,000
This test is approved for use in the detection and evaluation of pregnancy
states in women. It is not approved by the FDA for use in monitoring or
evaluating patients with cancer.
rainbows
so on friday i had an appt with dr. linebarger to confirm what 10+ pee sticks seem to indicate, all nicely arranged on our bathroom counter. brian took a test as well, as a control test to make sure that we didn't get a faulty batch of sticks. the past few days have been very anxious. haven't been sleeping well, which i'm sure is a combination of shock and my persistent cough which won't seem to subside. i'm noticing streaks of extreme paranoia, like i may just cough away this early pregnancy, or what about that day i worked from home and had the laptop in my lap on the couch. THE RADIATION of course. isn't that obvious? yes - i am a crazy chinese lady.
i seem to alternate between being intensely aware of my precarious state, and equally intensely in denial. the opposite sentiments are striking. like noticing that i'm much closer to my ideal weight of 115 and secretly being happy about that goal, but at the same time, asking brian if he's ready to take care of 2 babies. in the shower the other day i mentioned that he has a few months to figure out how he can make milk come out of his nips.
even at the doc's office, it didn't seem real. i brought the instruction sheet and a sample stick to show the doc to make sure that these ebay souvenirs are legit. it's a little beyond me that i don't shop ebay, however ebay has been intrinsically tied to my fertility. oh, the beauty of online. she was the first person to congratulate me, which seemed odd.... i feel like it doesn't seem real, or i can't believe it's real, or i shouldn't think it's real until after the first tri-mester.
i was a big baby, getting vials of my blood tested for a pre-natal screen for confirmation of the ebay sticks and my blood type and immunization history, but that's to be expected. me and needles do not get along. the nurse thought that making idle conversation about thanksgiving would distract me, but i'm no fool. it f*cking still hurt.
but when i pulled out of the parking lot, there were 2 rainbows breaking through the sky. a sign from the heavens i suppose. rainbows are always good.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
head slumped on the kitchen table
monday night. that's how it started. me mumbling to my sister that I should consider adding the cost of freezing my eggs to my fong xmas list. my sister so kindly telling me to stop procratinating and that my unborn kids will be at a higher risk for down syndome. thanks. tired, sick and coughing up the remnants of my lungs and slumped on the table. that's how it started.
peeing in a cup
so i peed in a cup. my cycle has been pretty irregular this year, ranging from 28-35days, so it's been a little hard to predict/plan anything. i wasn't late, but i was congested, couldn't fall asleep and peed in a cup. and then there it was.
a shadow of a line.
i ran to brian's side and was like "look at this!" he opened up his eyes and said "how come there's a pee stick in my face" and rolled over. huh. not the reaction that i would expect from someone so anxious to become a baby-daddy.
another day, another dolla. another stick, another line.
i couldn't sleep. thoughts were racing through my head like: ARE YOU SERIOUS? i don't have a doctor, i have a wine blending event with my team in early dec, when would i be due, i am not telling anyone, etc. so in the middle of the night i got up to pee again. thought another sample would be prudent. another stick, another line. in the morning, i peed in the cup again. see a pattern here? brian was a bit more alert in the morning and read the instruction sheet of the preg test. he started to understand that the line, in theory, is pretty meaningful.
i went to work, which kept me distracted all day and felt horrible since i didn't sleep much the night before. that was yesterday. what to do next? i thought about making an appt with my doc today, but she doesn't work on wednesdays. how convenient. i did email my sister last night and it went something like this:
"don't know why people are surprised when I say that I don't have an obgyn. Maybe I should find one to make sure the docking stations and the plumbing works behind my 8 pack abs. Do any of your peninsula friends or doctor friends recommend any female obgyns in the peninsula? Think of your most obnoxious, high maintenance, impossible to satisfy, pedigree snob, type capital A friends...i want to know who they go to. :)."
i'm not quite sure how i feel about everything. physically i feel like crap. emotionally i feel stunted because it all seems very surreal. can this really be happening?
