I’m too busy doling out blood samples to Watch any Terror

Okay, I made it a few weeks with the whole Friday Terror Watch thing before I crapped out.  But I have a really good excuse.

This morning I had to go take the three-hour gestational diabetes screening.  Because I failed the one hour.

And I complained pretty voraciously about that stupid one-hour test, which only goes to show that the medical establishment has one heck of a dark sense of humor.

I don’t know exactly what I scored on the one-hour test.  All I know is that there was a message left on my answering machine from my doctor’s office telling me that my one-hour test results were “a little high” and that I’d better hightail my butt to the lab for the three-hour test.

Most women don’t make it to the three-hour test (I’m special!  So special!), so let me give you a synopsis of what it was like:

It wasn’t three hours.  It took four-and-a-half hours. 

The lab was backed up.  I showed up at 7:30, starving because they wouldn’t let me eat first, hoping to get going right away so I could head to work.  I let that dream slowly die as I watched time tick away.  I finally made it into the lab at 8:20, ready to chug that nasty sugar water down and get going.

Not so fast.  First they needed to take a presample and run it.  They actually needed to check my sugar level first to make sure that the 100 grams of glucose that I was about to suck down wouldn’t kill me.  So, it was back out into the waiting room for me while they did that.

It was 9 o’clock before the results came back, I was determined to have a high likelihood of surviving the test, and I was allowed to have the drink.  And no, I still haven’t eaten.  And, by the way, I’m not allowed to leave the building in case I have a reaction.

(By the way, those of you who complain that the 50 gram solution that you get for the one-hour test is gross know not of what you speak.)

Blood draw at 10.  My head was about to spin off my body from the sugariness of it all.  By this point I’d done all the work I brought with me and was getting antsy.  I was starting to eye the old magazines laying around the waiting room.

Blood draw at 11. My arms were starting to look bloody and bruised.  And I needed a sandwich like nobody’s business.  I’d read my way through Smithsonian and Domino, but hadn’t yet decided if I’m desperate enough to read Dog Fancy.

Blood draw at 12.  The final one.  Thank heavens.  My abused veins hurt like the dickens.  I was so hungry that I wasn’t sure I’d make it home.  And, yes, I did read Dog Fancy.  It was either that or some boating magazine.

Am I worried about the test?  A little.  I’m choosing to believe that the first failure was just a fluke.  But we’ll see, won’t we? No sense freaking out until there’s a good freak-out reason.

By the way, there’s a good write-up on gestational diabetes here.

I’m a little concerned that the next level is naked

I used to have all kinds of personal rules about what I would and wouldn’t wear to work.  My office is business casual, with emphasis on the business, not the casual.  For example, in the summer people will wear dressy capris with nice shoes, but never shorts.  No one would dare wear shorts.  Jeans are occasionally worn by the back office staff but it makes some of the more conservative managers grumpy.  Because I am always meeting with the public, I dress a little nicer than most.  It’s important that I look professional.

Or, at least it was important.

I’ve dropped a number of rules that used to be sacrosanct when getting dressed in the morning: no open-toed shoes (fine for others, bugs me), no denim (too casual), no cleavage (admittedly, this didn’t used to be an issue), no tight clothing (there’s a difference between form-fitting and tight, folks), and nothing boring (I never want to be a khaki-and-blue-shirt person.  Just doesn’t work for me).

Also, no stains on clothing.  When people started giving me maternity clothes, I couldn’t figure out why all the shirts had stains on the front.  Now I know why.  I don’t know if pregnancy causes you to be messier, or if things that used to fall right to the floor now hit the belly on the way down, or if you just lean into things more, but every shirt I have now has something on the belly.  Grease stains, food stains, coffee stains.  Yet, I still wear them to work.

Here’s how my standards have fallen through the months in a dramatic fashion:

Pre-pregnancy, my goal was to show up to work fully clothed, matching, in the clothes that fit, and in something at least mildly hip so people knew I was a cool cat and not a corporate drone.

By month four, my goal was fully clothed, pretty-much matching, and in clothes that fit.  Looking good was a bonus.

By month six, I was down to fully clothed and in clothes that fit.

I’m now in month seven and am aiming for, um, clothed.

I’ve got ten weeks left.  How much lower can I go?  I’m going to end up wearing that enormous grey flannel sack dress that so horrified me when it showed up in a bag of hand-me-downs five months ago, aren’t I?  I’m probably going to have to wear it every day.

I think it’s a conspiracy

One of the dogs wouldn’t stop licking her paws all night.

The other paced the room non-stop at 3 AM (dog toenails on wood, what a relaxing noise…).

The kid has the hiccups.  It’s like I have a metronome in my gut.

My co-worker keeps tapping her pen.  She can’t even get it in time to the hiccups.

They are clearly all trying to make me absolutely batshit crazy.

Do you think we’ll end up braiding each other’s hair?

My doctor is my new best friend.  Not because she’s my favorite person of all time, though she is very nice and I like her.  But because I am starting to feel like I see her more than anyone else in my life.

I’ve reached the point where I have to go to see her every two weeks.  Every two weeks!  I have now officially seen this doctor more than any other doctor that I have ever gone to for any reason.  I see her more than some of my co-workers.    I see her more than I see my mother. I see her a lot, basically.

Is all of this seeing really necessary?  I mean, my heavens.  It’s  a lot of weighing and blood pressure checking and peeing in cups.  Every two weeks!  Then every week!  Stop with the seeing, Doctor Lady!  I’m getting a little sick of the whole thing.

Keep it up and I’m going to ask for my friendship bracelet back.

PS: Anyone out there work in the medical profession?  If so, can you explain how I always get the same exam room?  I mean, there’s other rooms.  I walk by at least two of them to get to my room.  When I go to the dentist I get different rooms.  Why always the same room at this office?  What are the odds?  Have they assigned me a room because studies have shown that pregnant women like consistency?  Is it because this room is right next to the scale and this way they don’t have to drag my in-shock body too far?  Why the same room? Why?

Why people sometimes think that I’m a wee bit crazy

We got a second dog.

Actually, we are temporarily adopting a second dog for the next year or so for a relative who has been put into a dog-free situation.

The two dogs are learning to get along (though there are a few touchy issues), but the new dog and the cat…that’s a different story.

That brings our total of chaotic life issues to three:

1) House under renovation

2) Baby on the way

3) New pet

That could be increased to four if I decide to take the new job. 

Anything else we could add?  How about we start our own business or decide to take in an elderly relative?  Perhaps we should try to buy a new house?

Friday Terror Watch: The beginning of the end

I haven’t really slept for three days.

I expect that I may not sleep decently again for as long as two years.

Why would nature deny mothers the last precious few months of sleep before they give birth?  Why? Seems unnecessarily cruel, doesn’ t it?

I’d write more, but I’m about to collapse on the keyboard in despair.

So instead, here’s a really old story showing how it makes us cranky, sex-deprived, and bad at mothering:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1906858.stm.

Muchas gracias and all that

Thanks for the opinions.  I really wanted to see if I had thought through the angles of this situation correctly, and I think I have.  It basically comes down to a question I often struggle with: do I want a career or a job?  I’m not a workaholic and, though I don’t mind showing up every day and being useful, I much prefer the “work to live” model to the “live to work” model.  Having a baby to juggle is just throwing all of those usual questions into sharper focus as I try to realign priorities.

My strategy now is to talk to two people: 

1) a colleague that I trust who has made the choice to stay in a support position here in order to have more time in her non-work life for her family and her art.  She also has been here a while and should be able to help me read between the lines of the job description and figure out what the day-to-day might look like; and

2) an acquaintance who used to work here in a similar position to mine and ended up leaving a year after having a child because she felt pulled in too many directions.  She will have some good insight.

So, thanks!

Opinions needed: Good idea or bad idea?

Facts:

a) My job requires frequent regional travel within a roughly 3-hour driving radius.

b) Because of the travel, I can have wacky hours (some days I leave the house at 6 AM; some nights I don’t get home until 8 or later.  Usually not both in one day unless I’ve really screwed up my schedule).

c) My job requires me to have strong skills in areas I am not naturally great at (schmoozing, outreach, your basic extrovert qualities).

d) Because I am an introvert, I can find forcing myself into the extrovert role really draining.

e) I frequently have minor breakdowns about how I am bad at my job.

f) I love the place where I work.  They are good people doing good things.

g) My pay is decent for my region and I receive good annual raises. 

h) Despite my occasional ambivalence about my job, I feel appreciated here and receive good evaluations and praise.  They like me and I like them.

i) A new position will be opening up early next year in a different department–right about when I return from leave.  It will require less travel, less wacky hours, and calls upon a skill set that I am more comfortable with.  Basically, I would be moving from fieldwork to communications.

j) Because I will be working from my strengths instead of my challenges, I suspect it will be less draining. 

k) It will pay a good chunk less than I am currently making and will be a slight step down in the heirarchy.  I’d be moving into more of a support position. 

l) Given my good track record here, I may be able to offset the pay cut by offering to only work 4 days a week.  I may also be able to arrange working from home another day per week.  (Do you see why I like this place?  Flexible, man, flexible.)

m) The new work has the potential to be a little boring.

Question: given all of the above, should I express interest in the new position and effectively demote myself in the interest of having a more predictable schedule over the next couple of post-baby years?

Smart sanity move or dumb career move?

Which is more important long-term?

Discuss.

This is what she meant, right?

There’s a genre of pregnancy writing out there that’s full of platitudes about pregnancy being the height of womanhood, as it is the most beautiful experience available to us on this earth.  I always imagine that the authors write these books in lavender-scented bound diaries with purple pens while wearing floral rayon dresses and surrounded by golden light and butterflies. Meanwhile, I am wearing high-waisted pants that don’t fit right across the butt and sweating profusely while I bulldoze my way through a store trying to find a crib that takes up less than 20 square feet of space.  I don’t always feel the joy.

(I went baby shopping again this weekend.  Can you tell?)

Anyway, I just read one of those books in an effort to change my bad attitude and there was a section near the end where the author waxed on and on about how her relationship with her son was more intimate than any other relationship she would ever have in her life.  And I doubtfully grunted “huh” as I contemplated my own intimate relationship with mint chocolate chip ice cream and wondered if it compared.

Then on Sunday morning I lay in bed in a pool of sunlight and found myself poking at the baby while saying, “No, really, would you please move your butt out of my ribcage?” And I think I understood what she was talking about.

Still no butterflies, though.

RhoGAM update: Let’s all exhale

Okie-dokie.  I’ve had some time to poke around and weigh the evidence.  Never one to want to throw red meat to the overreactive wolves, I wanted to make sure that I had some facts.

Unless I am misreading something, the RhoGAM shot is now safe.  It appears that the FDA banned the mercury-containing ingredient thimerosal from the RhoGAM shot in 2001.  RhoGAM had a two-year shelf life, meaning that all shots from 2003 on should have been mercury-free.

But thimerosal is still a major component in many vaccines.  You are going to have to do your own research on that.  The mercury/no-mercury debate is too detailed and vicious for me to just wander into blithely.

I forgive my doctor.  Mostly.  I would have liked to have known about the option to wait until after birth to get the shot.  Because I probably would have taken that option.  But from now on, I will ask more questions.