Tag Archives: pregnancy

No Strings Attached

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Today was an exciting day in the WTF household. Actually, just for me. No one else really noticed anything even though I endured 5 hours of anxiety, fear, insanity, tumult, confusion, heartache, worry, and panic. Since I’m a mom, I went through all that mental and emotional anguish while still “functioning” in a “normal” manner and “taking care of” my kids. (All those quotes are for the 15 minutes I spent in the library with S where she ended up stuck hanging partially upside down from a rocking horse and needed rescuing. I was lost to Facebook and panic, so she was rescued by a mom nursing an infant. That mom handled a boob, a baby and my upside down crying daughter while I could only manage my iPhone.)

Anyway, those of you who do not hang on my every Facebook update (why don’t you?) must be wondering what this anguish was all about. Today I had my annual physical. During the pap smear my doctor said, “Huh, that’s weird. You have the Mirena right?” “Yup. No more babies over here!” “Well, I actually don’t see the strings. And I can’t feel anything. You didn’t notice it come out, did you?”

“Haha. Wait. What? Excuse me? For a moment I thought you implied that I might not actually be using any form of birth control at all. That’s just crazy. Because that would mean…….” <—insert panic here.

5 hours later I had an ultrasound appointment. During the intermittent 5 hours my mind went through a sort of warped temporary psychosis. It’s hard to describe, but my inner monologue was something like this:

(It would be more like the real thing if it were in all caps with no punctuation or spaces.) Oh my god oh my god. My IUD could have come out? When? What if it was 6 months ago? I could be several months pregnant. That’s crazy. Of course I’m not pregnant. What was that? That twinge? Was that my ovary? I’m having an ectopic pregnancy. I’m going to lose the baby. What baby? Stop being crazy. There is no baby. The strings are just inside your uterus for some reason, the IUD is totally still in place. I’d notice a piece of plastic falling out of my freaking vagina. Wouldn’t I? I’m hungry. Shit. I think I feel a little nauseated. I kind of want a pickle. No! How are they going to get this thing out with no strings? Dilation? This is going to hurt. Ugh. Why why why why? Can’t have more kids. I have two. I’m so done. I can’t even stand the kids I have, let alone another one! I’ve been drinking. A lot. I’m going to have a premature, brain-damaged unwanted baby. Baby socks are so cute. I don’t want another baby. Everyone knows I don’t want another baby. This child will grow up knowing he’s unwanted. I will love my brain-damaged premature unwanted baby. There is no baby. Don’t be a lunatic. You’d know if you were pregnant. I just gave away all my maternity clothes last week. Why did I do that? Why all of a sudden was that important? I can’t have another baby. I can’t have another baby. I can’t have another baby. How cute are babies? Seriously. No no no no no no no no no no. This CANNOT be happening. I’m so scared of SIDS. Allison, WTF are you thinking of SIDS for? There is no baby. We do not want a baby. Of course we’d have the baby. And we’d come around and be all joyful and shit. Yeah, I could be joyful. As soon as all this dread and panic clears up. OMG. I think my boobs hurt. Do they look bigger? I think they do. Shit. Stop freaking out. You are not pregnant. There is no freaking baby!

This went on constantly for 5 hours.

Finally, I’m on the table getting the ultrasound. Like the heartless monster I am, I immediately inform the tech that we are hoping for NO BABY in there, even though countless women on that table before me have suffered dashed hopes wanting nothing more than a baby. I’m nervous. More nervous than I was for my ultrasounds for my actual pregnancies. Then she says it, “One thing is for sure; you are not pregnant.” Relief. Huge huge huge relief. Whew! I can finally breathe. That was a close one! Yay! Wait, what’s that? What’s that annoying feeling in the corner of my mind? Is it, could it be? Is it disappointment?

Fuck. It is.

Go away, Stupid Feeling! I am not disappointed! I do not want another child. But, there was a moment there. I tiny seedling of possibility. There was an image of baby socks and baby noses and baby bums small enough to sit in your hand. Yeah, but there was also the sound of baby cries at 2AM, and 4AM and 5AM and all day long and the next night and forever more. There’s diapers and potty training and enduring another 3-year-old and being outnumbered and what if the kid is annoying? Dude, I said baby socks, for the win. (Yes, I might call myself Dude in my internal conversations.)

So, that’s the day I had. I am totally relieved and happy with the outcome. Still have no idea what to do with the stringless Mirena which is apparently still operational and in place. And the blog loses out because I don’t have a whole new, overwhelming and potentially hilarious issue which would provide endless blog fodder, but that’s OK. I am the only person inhabiting my body and that’s just how I want it. Whew!

(baby socks)

 

We All Start Out Crazy (Don’t We?)

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Did you know that new moms today can get a digital timer to remind them to feed the baby? Is it just me, or is this the most ridiculous item ever put in front of pregnant women? These poor women are distraught, tired and distracted by their own swollen feet, so they’re vulnerable to absurd and manipulative marketing. Your baby will die if you forget to feed it. Better put that timer on the registry!

In case you have the kind of baby who doesn't cry when hungry, or smell when poopy.

People! You do not need a timer to remind you to feed your baby. Your baby will remind you. Your baby is programmed to do just that. Basically, it is the only thing your baby can do for a long, long time.

Anyway, as I was smugly making fun of this timer, I suddenly remembered an episode from my own crazy first-time-mom past. I somehow blocked this out, preferring to remember a fictional history of myself as a non-panic-stricken individual who did not go over the top with her first baby. But I did. Boy, did I ever.

When I was pregnant with L, T and I wanted to take a baby first aid and CPR class. Not unreasonable, right? Well, we were both full-time students with no money or time to spare for such courses. No worries, because I found the perfect solution! A way we could become baby saving experts on our own time for even less money than a course! I found this:

Maybe the scariest thing I've ever received in a box in the mail.

That’s right. I got my very own plastic baby. (This was a few years ago and ours looked a lot less like a blow up doll and a lot more like a dead baby. A totally freaky thing to live with.) What a great thing to have! We could always freshen up our skills. Just pop in the DVD, inflate the baby and compress to our hearts’ content!

If you think this is where the crazy ends, wait, there’s more.

Then I had my precious baby. He actually did choke once and I had to quickly turn him upside down and pound on his back until he vomited his body weight on the rug. Thanks plastic baby for the practice! (You might have mentioned the vomit and suggested doing it over tile or hard wood.)

Fast forward about 8 months when I’m ready to leave baby L with a babysitter. A random girl (who I grew to love) who I found on a university job board. This made me nervous. These days I’ll leave my kids with anyone willing to take them, but this first time I was so anxious about it! Guess what I made her do?

Yup. I made her come about 1/2 an hour before I was scheduled to leave so she could watch the video and practice on the dummy baby. And she did it graciously, as if it was a perfectly normal and not at all neurotic request, and she didn’t tell me I was a crazy lunatic. God, I love that girl.

I completely forgot all of this, like I said, and was so embarrassed for myself when I remembered. So, if any of you were ever under the impression that I’m at all cool, I give you this story as incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. *Takes bow.*
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Babies Everywhere. My Ovaries are Talking to me. (Shut up, Ovaries!)

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Recently I was asked in a comment about how I made the decision to have a second baby. This is a seriously good question, especially considering the trouble I had with L over the last year. The simple answer is that having only one child was never really a consideration for me. So it wasn’t a question of if but a question of when.

Luckily we decided to try for #2 before L was 2 years old. Had I still not been pregnant by the time L morphed from sweet but challenging toddler to complete evil monster villain (somewhere around 2.5), I don’t know if I would have gone through with #2. The year from almost 3 to almost 4 was so so so hard. L was not easy to be around, to put it mildly, (way mildly – he was extremely, impossibly, unfathomably unpleasant,) but thankfully S was already here by then.

So now I have my sweet but challenging 4-year-old and my sweet 1.5-year-old and I’m done. Right? Totally. I’m completely 100% mostly almost sure of it. What more could I want? I had 2 healthy pregnancies, have two healthy kids, have one of each sex – why push my luck? Also, I can sort of see the end of the tunnel. Baby days are close(ish) to behind me. Soon I’ll have a family that can go places and do things and not be encumbered by naps, diapers, and other babyish stuff.

But babies are just so cute. Can’t argue with that logic.

Unlike normal people, I liked being pregnant and I liked the newborn phase. I love that warm little floppy helpless bundle, even if it means colic, no sleep, sore nipples and diaper blow-outs. I recognize that this feeling I have is not remotely coming from my rational brain. It’s coming from some evolutionary, biological, clock-ticking, animal place and I should know better. And I do. Mostly. Luckily, T totally knows better and has not even the slightest inclination towards having another baby.

So, back to the question of how one arrives at the decision to have or not to have another child? I don’t really have an answer for that. For having a second, we didn’t really ever consider the alternative so there was no decision process beyond timing. As far as having any more, I feel like the partner who is done has veto power over the partner who may want one more. So we’re done. Well, at least we’re shelving the topic. For now. No, really, we’re done. Almost certainly absolutely probably so.

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