...and then my world imploded.

Hudson, you came with a crappy battery. We found out over the course of the last few weeks that your heart is just not strong enough or stable enough to last on its own, and you have been listed for a heart transplant. Your Dad and I have essentially moved in to the hospital with you (sleeping a few torturous blocks away in "patient family housing," which is basically a dorm), and we're just sitting and waiting for a phone call that will begin a domino effect liable to topple the rest of our lives. Even in a best case scenario, we will need to stay in Boston - in or near the hospital - for a few months after you get your new heart, and you will have a lifetime of medications and unbelievably frequent doctor visits, as well as a veritable expiration date on your heart. This whole process will need to happen again. In a worst case scenario...I don't want to think about worst case scenarios. There are too many of them.

I'm not honestly sure what to think of this whole situation. Right now - on heart-stabilizing IV drugs, a little bit of oxygen, feeding that basically doesn't require you to do any work, and anal-retentive monitoring of every internal and external system you have - you look really good. Some days your body seems to do a better job equalizing itself than others, but you are smiling a ton, loving attention and snuggles, and generally being your normal self. It sure doesn't look like you wouldn't survive long outside the hospital. Still, the reality of that fact has not escaped me. As soon as we got to Boston (in the middle of the night, with you in such total distress that your cardiologist didn't think you could survive a month waiting for a transplant), you stabilized so fast that we doubted for a few days whether transplant was even going to be our necessary course of action. I'm still not sure I ever had real hope for any outcome other than this. Your life so far has been so riddled with uncertainty that even when we got you home a few weeks ago and everything seemed to be going well, I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Your Aunt Erin and Aunt Anna have both said particularly poignant and excruciatingly important things to me since we got here. Erin noted that my whole life has basically been boot camp for just this situation, and she's right. My life has carefully hardwired me to just buckle down and deal with even the most terrifying of medical situations, and to place almost unbelievable trust in medical science. Being a teacher has made me patient to a point that my teenage self would never believe, and especially being a teacher in a sort of sketchy district has increased my resourcefulness and ability to just put up with shit. Add to that a very conscientious effort to get over any sort of relationship craziness I may have loaded on myself over my dating years, and I'm pretty much ready to sit and deal with anything your little body needs us to do. I don't like it, and I'd obviously rather things had gone just about any other way, but this is what we've got, and that's just how it is. We deal.

The one piece of this puzzle that I hadn't been able to reconcile was the fact that some other baby has to die in order for you to survive. Some other family has to endure the loss of their child (probably suddenly, probably catastrophically) so that my family gets to keep you - so that I get to keep you. Your Aunt Anna made the inarguable point that no matter how it affects us, that other child was going to die anyhow. We're not making the choice to end another life so that yours can continue; we're just taking life from that loss. I hate that I constantly have a wish in the back of my mind for a new heart to come your way because of what that means, but I have to look at this as creating meaning from tragic circumstances. You are going to be a part of rebalancing the order of things, however unnatural the means.

Hudson, you have been the center of my universe since even before you were born, but since we've it's as if someone put a pair of blinders on my head. All of a sudden, it seems like every bit of energy I have, every conversation that happens, every little thing that happens is focused on you. You're like a black hole, pulling all my decisions towards you and soaking up any light that comes from anywhere else. (I don't mean to sound like you are any kind of burden - weirdly, this is all we've ever known you to be, and we love you painfully much, so it's no hassle or fuss at all.) Knowing how delicate you are just makes it all the more important to keep my focus completely on you. This has made a lot of decision-making easy; of course I'm going to do everything I can to extend my leave at work, I'll happily eat cafeteria food for months, and yes, we will gladly live in a shoebox as long as we get to stay close by.

As soon as you were born, the sheer volume of love I felt for you was intimidating, but now it's gotten almost scary. I've grown deadly serious, defensive, and even sometimes aggressive when it comes to your care, and dark, unsympathetic, and bitter when it comes to most other people in general. It's not particularly safe to keep this perspective (especially as a teacher, and someone who generally considers herself to be a decent person), but I'm worried. I'm already so jaded that it will be a substantial uphill battle to bring myself back to a "normal" state of empathy. Somehow (and this may be your black hole effect), I am still finding incredible joy in you. You've been holding your head up and looking around tons, grabbing onto and holding fingers, hair, clothes, small toys, and - of course - your assorted tubes and lines, and being wonderfully smiley, conversational, and snuggly. As in Portland, everyone here seems impressed with how resilient, friendly, and even-tempered you are, and rightfully so. I think I'll be okay as long as I can still be made insanely happy by you, even if so much else is so dark.

...but I want to cross the bridge now...

We're in Boston. From the beginning of your whole ordeal (and this is beginning in utero), people asked us whether we were going to come down here for a consult, or for any of your operations, or for anything at all, and we consistently said that we were comfortable and happy with the medical care we were getting in Maine. We were...more or less...but I kept getting edgy when little problems were left not only unresolved but were sometimes even written off as "no big deal" when they were clearly anything to be concerned about. We were told again and again that cardiac patients - especially infant cardiac patients - are tricky because until something is obviously wrong, it's impossible to preempt any problems with preventative treatment. Basically, until you're in crisis, even the most bizarre changes have to be more or less brushed off.

Two weeks ago today, I took you in to an emergency appointment with cardiology. Your chest had started making this godawful clicking, grinding noise that made me think your sternum had separated. Turns out I was right (a fact we didn't confirm for two more weeks), but no one seemed particularly concerned; in fact, this is apparently kind of common, and we were told to just let them know if things got worse. Your breathing was a little funky, too, but because your oxygen saturation was exactly where we wanted it, your heart rate was rock solid, and both your echocardiograms and EKG's looked fine, we were sent home and told to just keep an eye out for any changes. My mommy-gut was still unsettled, but your cardiac nurse practitioner told us that treating the problems you were presenting was a bridge we couldn't cross until we got there.

This past Friday, your breathing still just wasn't right, your chest was popping like crazy, and you had slacked off your eating to a point where I was worried about hydration (a major issue for anyone with your heart condition). We went in to see one of the cardiologists, and he spent over an hour observing you, only to decide that there was nothing obviously wrong. Once again, we were told to just watch for any new patterns, and home we went. Friday night you did a little better eating, and actually had a great night of sleep. Saturday was a non-stop fight to get food into you, but other than being a little more sleepy than usual and a little less smiley, you seemed fine. Although the mommy-gut was sure we were prolonging the inevitable by not going to the hospital yet, I let myself be convinced that you were either just getting over a cold or feeling kind of crappy after a massive bundle of vaccinations earlier in the week. I've been told that it's a fairly normal baby thing to be perfectly healthy and stable, then nosedive suddenly into serious illness, but yesterday caught us completely by surprise.

Saturday night, you and I fell asleep on the couch and had a pretty normal, snuggly night. You took a bottle while still mostly asleep, like normal, and woke up kind of cranky and fussy around 4:00AM, like normal. Your Dad has been wonderful about letting me get extra sleep on the weekends by doing your 5:00AM antibiotics and meal, then the 8:00AM as well instead of me needing to wake up for the latter, so after he was up and moving, I went to go catch a few uninterrupted hours of sleep. Part of me knew we'd end up at the hospital if you didn't eat well, but I figured we'd cross that bridge when we got there.

I hope you grow to be the rock-solid sleeper that your Dad is rather than inheriting my unfortunate tendency to wake up - and I mean fully, completely be shocked into consciousness - with the slightest sound or movement. I almost never make it through a night without waking up at least once or twice, and my lightest sleep is typically right after I've fallen asleep, so having a disturbance-free first hour or so of rest is key. Yesterday morning, I heard you start to fuss not long after I crawled into bed, and was aware of you crying off and on as I drifted in and out of sleep. It seemed like it had been a matter of minutes since I left you and your Dad out in the living room, but suddenly your Dad burst into the bedroom, panicked because he hadn't been able to get you to calm down in something like an hour and a half. My first thought was disgruntlement that he couldn't get you to settle down on his own, but when I heard and saw how hard you were crying, I started to panic a little, too. We called cardiology and were told to go to the ER - not because it was an emergency, but because the practice had moved to a new office over the weekend and they didn't have anywhere else to check you out. I got you to calm down enough to put you into warm clothes and the car seat, and we casually made our way to the hospital.

Here's the funny thing about the ER: no matter what shape someone is in at home, the second they walk through those doors, everything gets worse. This might be the same phenomenon as a nasty cut feeling better when it's covered up with a band-aid so you can't see how bad it is, or how a terrifying movie isn't nearly so awful if you cover your eyes (even if you can still hear everything and see the looks of horror on the faces of the people stupid enough to keep watching). At home, you seemed to be breathing a little fast and you were a little pale. At the ER, a triage nurse walked over to us...and suddenly you were in respiratory distress and your hands, feet, and lips had gone purple. You were swarmed by a dozen doctors and nurses who had never worked with you before, so I had to ramble off your complete medical history half a dozen times while everyone panicked about your numbers (which for any other baby look hideous, but which for you were actually fine). Your Dad ran off to make phone calls, and meanwhile the decision was made to admit you to the PICU.

We were given the dreaded direction to "go ahead and find somewhere comfortable to wait while we settle him in." I don't know why, but whatever it means to settle you in apparently includes aggravating you to a point where you nearly crash. This has happened several times, and yesterday was no exception. What should have been forty-five minutes of poking and prodding turned into three hours of us waiting and the pit of my stomach sinking deeper and deeper. We came to find out that you nearly coded while you were being sedated, a decision that was made so that you could be intubated and have your heart do as little work as possible. Your cardiologist did an echocardiogram and confirmed that your heart function had deteriorated in a way that both couldn't be fixed and didn't have an obvious cause. He presented the option of transplant, but was emphatic that we wait until the next morning to decide if that was going to be our course of action. I asked for more information, and was told "we'll cross that bridge when we get there." This time, waiting wasn't an option.

Hudson, I truly hope that you never need to make such a dramatic decision about anyone else's life, but if you do, I hope it's as easy for you as this was for us. With two choices - pursue a transplant in Boston or just make you comfortable until your heart gave out - we didn't hesitate for a second. Within an hour or so, arrangements had been made to move you to Boston the next day, but within a matter of hours after that, the team from Children's Hospital Boston decided to transport you that night. I went with you in an ambulance (and by that, I mean the hospital-owned spawn of a monster truck, ambulance, and child's coloring book explosion) and your Dad drove behind us, and we arrived in Boston a little after midnight.

Sometime we'll be outside during the summer, and we'll drip some juice a little ways away from an anthill. What happens next will be a pretty solid illustration of what happened as soon as we got you into the Cardiac ICU. Almost twenty different doctors and nurses swarmed and mobilized to get you comfortable and settled in, and within the hour that your Dad and I managed to stay awake enough to fill everyone in about as much of your history and condition as our brains would let us regurgitate on almost no sleep, your numbers started to stabilize. Overnight, everything stayed more or less the same, and today has been delightfully boring.

I still can't bite back the terror. Yesterday, your cardiologists in Maine made things sound extremely grim, and while everyone here has been so proactive as to almost seem optimistic, this is serious. Seriously serious...with a side of serious sauce and serious fries. There's no forgetting the fact that we are now looking at a survival rate below your originally projected 95%, no matter what our course of action, and no matter how stable you seem. I knew every successive hospitalization would be simultaneously easier (from a combination of experience and simply being beaten into emotional submission) and harder (because with every day, you're more our little boy), but this is just a whole new ball game. Your Dad and I are trying to make something of a sport out of learning the ropes in a new setting with new people, and the fact that this really is one of the best possible places for you to be is comforting...but still.

While I'm writing this, your Dad is passed out face-down on the window seat/parent sleep area in your room and I'm just barely keeping myself awake. Even though you're sedated, you've had a few moments of fussing yourself awake because you've been congested or accidentally in a weird position. It's really comforting to see you do anything even vaguely normal after such a dramatic, almost unbelievably sudden transition from sleeping comfortably in my arms to being hooked up to half the medical world on a hospital bed. I'll write more about this bizarre but vital place where we're likely to spend the next few weeks - maybe months - of our lives, but I think I should wake up your Dad and try to find the cafeteria.

Hud is a battlefield.

Hudson, you're making things very interesting. On the one hand, every nurse or doctor who sees you notes that you are ridiculously cute/handsome/beautiful/etc..., which is awesome and seems to predispose them to treating you with a little more sweetness than might be normal. On the other hand, you are apparently a vehement guardian of your circulatory system. On Wednesday, it took upwards of ten different people to get an IV into you, and every time doctors have needed to blood from you for lab work, at least three people have needed to attempt it before someone is successful. This means that you are not only an exciting challenge for seemingly every medical professional who you encounter, but that most of you looks like a slightly bruised pincushion. 

Everyone tells me that these earliest scars are unlikely to last past childhood, but right now, it's really tough not to see your body as a battlefield. Right now (and I know these will go away soon, but not soon enough), you have dozens - and dozens - of tiny little needle pricks from attempted blood draws and IV placements, and your heels are practically raw from sticks to get small blood samples. From operation #1, you've got the big scar from the base of your neck to the bottom of your sternum, a belly button-sized scar from your chest drainage tube, a few scattered tiny holes from a line that went directly into your heart, and a line-shaped scar from your arterial line (basically a giant catheter into the artery in your right wrist). From operation #2, the big chest scar now gets the added flourish of stitches, plus you had two small holes for small drainage tubes between that scar and the previous drainage tube scar. Soon, you'll have a central line placed that shouldn't leave too much of a scar, but it's still something else. That's a total of six, not counting all the tiny scars from stitches holding things in place and all the dot from IVs and other stuff like that.

You know how many scars I have? Three. None of them are longer than, say, a quarter inch. I don't even know where two of them came from, so clearly whatever caused them was unremarkable. Your Dad has a few, most notably a burn scar on his forearm from an unfortunate incident with an iron when he was less than a year old, two tiny scars from a hernia operation when he was four, and most of the rest that haven't faded yet are the result of brushes with your Aunt Erin and Uncle Jeff's cat, Az. You are so much more bad-ass than either of us. 

Today, on your one month birthday, I'm back in the original hell of the SCU waiting room. I got to spend a nice chunk of time holding you this morning because the IV that was so hard-won on Wednesday gave out overnight, so today you weren't hooked up to anything in particular. You're consistently impressing the hell out of everyone (not least of which me) by being so calm, easily soothed, and generally good-natured despite everything. Still, another three people failed to get an IV into you this morning, so in order to get you the antibiotics you need and be able to get blood out of you without ten people needing to try (and likely fail) to do so, you're down in the OR right now having a semi-permanent IV put in. 

Less than on Wednesday, but still quite a bit, I'm feeling that pit-of-the-stomach aching, flight-or-flight-inducing, protective agony. Of course, I'm overtired, haven't eaten enough, and have the added fun of being by myself because your Dad is home sick. Everyone has told me that this is a quick procedure with a minimal chance of complications, and you should just be in the PICU overnight for observation; that doesn't shut off the impulse to panic. I just have to keep telling myself, again and again, how insanely, super-humanly strong (or whatever) you are.

Strength is clearly a weird thing. I've frequently been called strong for having put up with all the crap that I've had to put up with since we found out what was going to be wrong with you. I'm rocking over five months of "incredible strength," and you know what? I don't feel strong. I don't feel like what I'm doing is the result of any effort or innate ability; I'm just waking up in the morning and doing what I need to do. It's not like I have a choice (short of abandoning you and going to live in some fantasy world where none of this ever happened), so does that really imply strength...or am I just really adept at accepting reality? If that's strength, then my definition is clearly different. In any case, I'm really, REALLY sick of being complimented on the ability to put up with shit without falling apart. Compliment me on my ability to digest efficiently or breathe well - that takes the same amount of intent.

You, on the other hand, clearly have something more going on. My reflex is to call you strong comes from my assumption that strength - physical, internal, or otherwise - is what has carried you this far. Medically, you've been sort of a trainwreck, but you look and act like a healthy baby who is just pissed off about being poked and prodded so much. It's almost impossible to believe that you've looked death in the face (and given a judgmental glare then moved on with your life) at least three times in the month you've been alive. Does that make you especially strong? I sure as hell think so. By the time you're old enough to walk and talk, you'll have survived more than almost anyone I know. You might look like you sauntered through a firing range, but you can still give me an appraising stare, squirm a little, then fall asleep with a vice-like grip on my finger. THAT is strength.

I can speak the lingo. (Kinda?)

We're over forty-eight hours from your surgery, and I've got to tell you, Hud, I was ill-prepared for this whole experience. Emotionally, I don't think there's anything your Dad or I could have done to brace ourselves, but we're managing pretty well considering. Psychologically, I think we're both keeping it thoroughly together without repressing or avoiding anything; we're talking a lot, processing details together, and collectively working to stay positive and grounded in reality. Physically, I don't think anyone expected me to bounce back from childbirth as quickly or easily as I did, but neither your Dad nor I have had experience with the hospital waiting game. For spending the bulk of our days either sitting in one place in the cafeteria, walking down the same four hallways to and from your room, standing next to your little bed-thingy, or breastpumping (me, not your Dad), we end the day pretty thoroughly wiped out. Like, hit the couch, fuzz out of focus, and wake up a few hours later to drag our sorry asses to bed wiped out. The fact that we're looking at potentially another week of exactly this - you unconscious and being supported by drugs, people, and machines while your heart gets stronger - is just daunting. When you're at least awake, I feel like it will be easier to feel like being here has purpose for you, not just us. Of course, we've been assured (and reassured, and re-reassured) that our presence is good for you - and I know that it is - but we are spending a lot of time just chatting with medical staff and camping out in the cafeteria. We're both getting a LOT of reading and writing done.

Another thing I wasn't prepared for when we came in to the hospital was the sheer volume of medical jargon we'd be hearing all the time. I mean all the time. Constantly. I totally understand how and why so many people get overwhelmed, frustrated, and ultimately feel either helpless or furious with medical professionals in hospitals, because only the most compassionate nurses know how to (or bother to) translate the jibberish they spew into normal-person speak. We've now listened to rounds twice, and now I know that this is going to be like learning Finnish...or maybe Klingon...and Elven...or some obscure dialect that blends the two...Hudson, I'm not good with languages. This is a whole new sort of challenge.

Unfortunately, even second-hand recountings of my Dad's medical tribulations have given me a working understanding of the logistics of a lot of hospital procedures, many of the most common drugs given to post-op patients or those who need systemic support, the vocabulary doctors use to abbreviate and code data...erm...other stuff? Honestly, my percentage of having any clue what they're saying is currently grounded with action verbs. Words like "wean," "regulated," and "stabilized" are generally good. "Decrease" and "increase" can be good or bad depending on the circumstances, so those are a little tricky. "Failing" or "not tolerating" are clearly bad, but we haven't heard the latter in a while, and we've never heard the former (and never want to). I could list off a few of the medications you're on, and I think I could identify all the different tubes and lines and such that they've got going in or out of you, but I realized this morning that I don't even know the technical terms for everything that's wrong with your heart. I heard something new listed off during rounds and went "holy crap, he's got THAT too?!?" (Granted, your Dad assured me that had been identified right after you were born, so it wasn't new news, just something I'd missed in the onslaught.)

I don't want to be one of those people who just tells doctors to dumb it down and put it into layman's terms, especially knowing that we're going to go through this whole hellish process two more times, to say nothing of uncountable appointments and check-ins throughout the course of your life. I feel like this  whole experience is akin to moving to a foreign country. We've essentially taken up residence somewhere that has a large number of English speakers, so we could theoretically make do not learning the native tongue, but we'll be indefinitely handicapped if we don't. We can get our basic needs met, even engage in some conversations with locals, but to access any more nuanced information requires vocabulary and syntax we've yet to acquire. I won't be a tourist here, and while I don't anticipate fluency any time soon, I'll be damned if I smile blithely while the local authorities talk over my head (however well-intentioned they might be).

For now, I'm still relying on nurses to translate for me after I overhear doctors ramble at one another, but it's a baby step towards actual comprehension. I think your Dad is potentially absorbing more than I am, but he's starting with a little less background knowledge, so I imagine we're somewhere around the same level of understanding, overall. I really do hold to the adage "...and knowing is half the battle," so the more we actually know (not just flummox through kind of, sort of understanding), the better. I will always wish that this wasn't what we had to deal with, but Hudson, we do both love a challenge.

Hospital hell, part one

Hudson, I don't even know how to describe how scary, shitty, and miserable things have been for the last twenty-four hours or so, especially knowing that things are likely to kind of, sort of, stay this way for a while. You made it through surgery with flying colors; everything went "super" (according to your surgeon) and you came back to the PICU with great stats. Then, not so much. To quote your cardiologist, your pulmonary thoracic system is "twitchy." Pretty much any stimulus can throw you into what he called a "spell," which sounds like more or less full-on cardiac distress. You've had a few more of these incidents, which your (also amazing, in addition to the others I've mentioned) nurse, Jane, assures me have gotten less awful as we've moved forward in time. Still, anything that a doctor has to be present for so that it is "less life-threatening" than it would be otherwise...good shit.

I just can't wrap my head around the idea of your life being threatened by anything. You seemed so normal and strong when you first came out. Even yesterday morning, there you were wriggling around, making little squeaky noises, death-gripping our fingers, whining when you pooted ("Dolphin farts," as your Dad playfully and accurately titled them)...totally regular new baby stuff. Today, they have you sedated so that you can't even move and accidentally startle yourself. There's a certain irony to the fact that our number one goal is not stimulating you in any way. Your Dad and I are so chill and quiet (for the most part) that we were actually kind of excited to have a kid who needs a more relaxed lifestyle. This is a fairly drastic extreme, granted, but I guess it's good to know that our virtually silent evenings will be a good match for what you can handle.

The surrealism of this situation is making it somehow easier to stomach. Not having ever had you at home, only having held you for minutes of your life, and really only seeing you for some minutes every day, are all making it nearly impossible to internalize the fact that we even HAVE a baby. I have to look at pictures of you when we're not in your room to kind of remind myself that this is real (not that massively sore boobs, healing stitches, and some still-shrinking belly flab aren't reminders enough), and even when I've got a few fingers touching some part of you that isn't covered with tubes and IVs...it's so hard to convince myself not only that you're a real person, but that you're a real part of your Dad and me. This makes me feel, frankly, awful when I register "oh yeah, right, I'm a Mom now...maybe I should be with my baby more," but it's also making it possible for me to ever sleep or leave your room. I'm capable of listening to doctors describe what is happening to your body without completely flipping out every time. I've even managed not to bawl my eyes out too many times a day (really, it's only been a few times so far), which has even me pretty impressed.

As of right now - just over five days from your birth, and roughly thirty-six hours after your surgery - you're doing a better job tolerating stimulus. They were able to suction out your throat (which was previously the worst thing throwing your whole little system into crisis, despite being completely necessary due to your breathing tube) once this afternoon without incident, and while little changes still distinctly upset you, they aren't completely messing you up. I'm tempted to take pictures of how utterly horrible you look now just so we can look at them together and you can say "holy shit, Mom," but I'm terrified that those will end up burned in my memory the way I'm trying to burn in the images of you pre-surgery, all pink and comfier. We'll see. I think I will the first day you don't look entirely like hell, but for now your Dad and I are just plopped in the cafeteria, blogging and poking around on the internet, and ducking over to watch you in little spurts. I hope the good vibes are soaking in as much as we're pouring them out.

It's the shit.

I hardly know where to begin, so I guess I'll start with poop. Hudson, this is going to be a common family topic of conversation, so get used to it.

I don't know if this is a superpower that some new parents just magically manifest, or if I am naturally a certain sort of desensitized to gross or icky things beyond what I thought I was, but since you've showed up, I've had no problem whatsoever with the kind of terrifying bodily stuff that has happened. Without going into too many details, I can safely say that my first shower after giving birth to you was not unlike a slasher flick; I practically had to keep alternating between giggling uncomfortably and pretending that I was being attacked by a psycho with a giant knife. Did it actually bother me? Nope. That's a thing that happens. No big deal. I know I've got a fair number of stitches in a place where I really didn't ever want to think about having stitches, but whatever. You needed that to happen, so I haven't batted an eye.

On your end, it's been a little tougher. The first time I tried to see you after you popped out, a few NICU doctors or specialists or something were hooking up your IV, and apparently having a tough time of it. I couldn't see anything but the suggestion of you in a sea of blue sterile blankets, so we had to wait and come back half an hour later. At first, you had an IV in your head, one through your belly button, a ton of small sticks where they tried to place IVs in both of your hands and feet, something in one of your heels, and you were covered - COVERED - with tiny sensors that measured your heart rate, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation. This sounds awful. It looked awful. Frankly, it WAS awful, but I didn't really care. I knew you were being kept as comfortable as possible, and everything that was being done was necessary. Your Dad has been similarly collected about all the medical junk, to a point where he has actually been there and keeping you company during a number of procedures while I was off being poked or prodded for some reason on my own. The only time I have seen cracks in his genuine cool has been around poop.

Hudson, I am positively thrilled that you have still been pooping and peeing close to as much as any baby does. Not only does that mean that you have good, oxygenated blood flow getting everywhere it needs to, but it means you're getting the nutrition and hydration you need. I've only been able to help change your diaper twice, but - while I'm sure I'll be more than sick of dealing with diapers sooner rather than later - that has actually been a huge treat. It's such a normal thing. I haven't even been able to hold you except for immediately after you were born, and then I was a little shell-shocked; I know it happened, but I can't really pull up a concrete memory of anything except kissing the top of your head and thinking "wow, he is just COVERED in gunk." I don't remember the weight of you, and there were enough other people hovering around that I didn't really need to worry about you wriggling off or away. Your Dad got to carry you back from the NICU folks who checked you over right after birth to see me, so he's at least held you a little more than me, but he is not so excited about poop. In fact, he's stood by and stoically held your hands or feet or cupped the top of your head while doctors or nurses have done all sorts of things to you, but during diaper changes? Not so much.

Why is this so damn funny to me? I know this is a legitimate aversion that he will really need to work on, but watching him grunt "Oh GOD..." and turn away from poop, but not anything else? It's weirdly comforting. What a totally normal, non-medical thing to be uncomfortable with. I know that the next few days are likely to get rougher, what with your surgery tomorrow morning and the inevitable pile of scary machines, tubes, and substantially more invasive things going on, but even these first few days have shown how much better we can both feel as lines come out, color gets better, and dire situations get calmer. Plus, you're pooping! That shouldn't stop, so you should just keep being more and more like a healthy, normal baby.

Clear sailing, for the moment...

Finally, some entertainment! (I hate that I've gotten so jaded, bitter, and frankly sadistic just six months into what will become a lifestyle peppered liberally with medical appointments, but I guess we'll call my amusement a silver lining.) I walked into Dr. Fuckhead's waiting room this afternoon to find a relatively packed house, among them a few choice and exciting characters. Perhaps most visible was a massively pregnant, furious-looking African woman who was breathing heavily enough to suggest an asthma attack (but reeked of Dr. Fuckhead's office's favorite aromatic: cigarette smoke). Her male...er...partner? ...son? ...husband? ...friend? (I couldn't tell: he looked to be at least ten years younger than her, and she was definitely not much older than me, so I didn't want to jump to any conclusions)...whatever he was, he was slumped so far down in his chair that no part of the lower half of his body was even close to the seat. I think he was asleep, but I couldn't tell until she was called. He exhaled with clear annoyance, muttered something that included the word "fuck," and glared at her while she more or less failed to get herself vertical without an unseemly struggle.

Also quite exciting were the two dudes I ended up sitting closest to: both were shaggy, ill-kempt, stank of cigarettes, and were glued to their cell phones. One appeared to be texting, but the other was playing some kind of game that apparently rewards or punishes the player with either canned applause or a fake studio audience boo. I couldn't help but notice that their behaviors seemed to line up suspiciously with the noises from the second dude's phone.

Guy #1 picks his nose really, really obviously: boo.
Guy #2 clearly gets a text that makes him happy, and he smiles broadly: applause!
Guy #2 then drops his cell phone and swears loudly in front of the half dozen children under the age of six who are quietly watching a PBS science show: boo.
Guy #1 scratches his crotch: applause!
Guy #2 notices that his knock-off Timberland boots are untied: applause!
Guy #1 goes back for another dig at some boogers he missed the first time: applause?

This continued until Guy #1 wandered up to the desk and asked to be let in to the exam room with his girlfriend, and Guy #2 just left altogether without any woman rejoining him. I was left with five women sitting quietly by themselves, one dude peacefully doing a crossword puzzle, a mother with two delightfully polite, happy-looking kids, and a gaggle of women clustered around an obvious mother-to-be who was just reveling and glowing in the onslaught of attention they were delivering her.

Batman, this was by far the most populated AND pleasant the Carnival has ever been. The most unhappy or unpleasant person left was a woman who just looked sort of uncomfortable, but all the kids were getting focused, loving attention from their parents, all the other women seemed calmly resigned to their wait, and any men left over seemed perfectly content to amuse themselves for as long as they needed to. All the folks who brought truly offensive odors to the room cleared out fairly quickly, and no one even had a phone visible. It was almost like a normal waiting room!

Of course, this reeked of foreboding. I've developed a lot of weird superstitions about this office, several of which are frankly embarrassing. In order to NOT have something show up on an ultrasound that either indicates a new problem or raises a warning flag, all of the following conditions must be met. I must be wearing my Ganesh necklace. Your Dad can't be there (seriously: every time he was, we got some kind of bad news). I have to arrive at least five minutes early. I have to grow at least mildly annoyed with the wait. I have to park on the side of the lot closest to the exit.

This appointment, aside from being the second to last one before your intended arrival, was kind of a huge deal. Last week, I was told that my amniotic fluid levels were an eight out of twenty, which is two points away from a score that would require them to pop me into the hospital immediately to get you out as quickly as possible. What I was left wondering was a) what the hell can I do about this? (drink more and rest a lot), b) has this been progressing at a rate that someone should have warned me about sooner? and c) what the fuck? How many more things can go wrong? I pulled into the lot reasonably early, Ganesh necklace on, Dad at home, already somewhat irritated by the crappy traffic in town, and there were no spots where I normally park. I've even gotten to a point where I wear the same pants for every ultrasound day (not just because they give the easiest access to my belly), and I was totally wearing the right pants! After a panicked moment (because the only spot I could see was on the other side of the lot, where I had to park the day we found out there was something wrong with your heart), I saw a spot on the correct side of the lot, just in a different aisle from normal. We were okay. I've parked there before. The off feeling remained, though.

After a hefty-ish wait, I was called back by this one particular ultrasound tech whose almost unintelligible Eastern European accent is simultaneously comforting and disconcerting. I can never quite make out what she's saying the first time she says it, but hearing excruciatingly detailed information in her accent (once I get it the second time around) somehow sounds more credible than if it was coming from anyone else. She looks you over, and pronounces that there is basically no way that my amniotic fluid levels could have dropped as low as they did without me having some kind of virus or major illness, which clearly I would have known about, so her theory was that you were just stretched out in such a way as to "hide" pockets of fluid from easy view. All that chugging water, all those inconvenient bathroom trips, and all that panic for nothing. We're both given clean bills of heath and sent on our way.

Batman, of course I'm thrilled that everything is fine and that they didn't have to frantically induce me a week and a half before we'd planned. I don't think I can accurately express in words how excited I was to drive my car home tonight, walk upstairs, throw my stuff down by the door, and kiss your Dad hello. Just like normal. I know normal is going to completely change soon, and I'm prepared for that, but I was definitely not ready to lose it quite yet, especially not on anything resembling our terms. A semi-bonus of this whole experience, though, was learning just how tired and worn-down I really am. Even one day back to school - even a fairly quiet day - completely wiped me out. Conversely, the five days we spent lying around thinking that bed rest was basically the safest mode to operate in were just amazing. Lesson learned: I'm throwing in the towel a few days early, and not going back to school for the last two days of this week. It's time to pay attention to you, Batman, not sixty other peoples' kids.

Why I will never put a ribbon on my car

I feel like it's ironic that I start off this blog entry somewhat upset over someone else's blog. I really don't know why (I should REALLY have learned my lesson about the internet by now, shouldn't I?), but after your Dad and I got home from yet another tour of yet another wing of the hospital where you'll be born, I stupidly started poking around online for pictures of kids after they've had the same surgery you'll have. I found a picture on the personal blog of some dude in his mid-forties who was born with the same condition as yours, and while it's sure nice to hear that he's doing well, this poor man's entire existence seems to have been reduced to the fact that he has a congenital heart defect. Seriously? The last thing I needed to read after this afternoon was some kumbaya-singing inspirational rambling about "overcoming adversity" and "taking every day as a blessing." For no good or fair reason, this guy was born with something wrong with him, and he has clearly spent way too much time focusing on that fact; is that really enough to make a person?

This afternoon, we got to see the NICU again (which really is a beautiful facility) but also the PICU (perinatal ICU) which was...well, crappy. All things considered, it's a collection of glass shoeboxes with harsh fluorescent lights, an open door to the massive monitoring station in the center of the room, and to make matters that much worse (or weirder, or something) it's apparently used as overflow for the cardiac ICU. There were only two children in a ward of twelve or so tiny "rooms," only one kid small enough to be in a crib, and about eight or so adults, most of them in extremely rough shape. There are no chairs, no visiting space, and no privacy. They don't allow sleep-ins when there is any equipment in the room, so your Dad or I won't be able to stay with you for a few nights after your first surgery (which, as far as I'm concerned, is a load of horseshit, but not negotiable due to physical space restrictions), but as soon as you're off a respirator, they can wedge a cot in there. How charming. A cot. This is where you'll spend an estimated week after surgery before being moved to a regular room in the children's wing, and I'll be honest; even after seeing a photo of what your incision will look like, how puffy and unwell you'll look immediately after the operation, and how completely covered with tubes you'll be, I'm also more unhappy with where you'll be and the fact that being there seems so forbidding. This is where the best nurses for you (and arguably some of the best nurses at the hospital, which has an exceptional reputation for cardiac care) are stationed, so it's definitely where we want you to be, but what a shitty place to spend the first week or so of your life.

What has me upset is the fact that we've already been marked as a "heart family." For now, this is a vital adaptation, to be sure, because it labels us as we need to be labeled in order to access the care, people, and resources we need, but long-term, can't we just be ourselves? How can this blog-dude so gladly adopt THIS as the focus in his life? He goes to conventions and regional meetings and such for other adults with congenital heart defects, participates in tons of medical studies, and generally seems happy to devote all of his time to just BEING a person with a heart defect. Growing up with a father with a very specific medical condition that has been a pretty majorly occupying focus for the family, I do get it: people need support and validation when a medical problem is a huge part of life. It's healthy to look to others who share your challenges for support and inspiration (if that's what floats your boat), but to turn oneself into a poster child for a cause feels...erm...how do I say this nicely...creepy?

I don't want to be one of those families that ends up pigeonholed into only having relationships with other families whose lives have been impacted by heart problems. I refuse to limit my friendships with other parents - to say nothing of your friendships with other kids - to people who have "faced adversity" like we have. I know it's probably not going to win me any friends if I speak ill of people who lovingly and openly support medical causes, but I just can't let myself, your Dad, or you turn into one of those people. This will obviously be a major part of our lives; hell, it's majorly impacting the start of yours and our experience having you in ways that I honestly can't help but be furious about on some levels, but that is all the more reason I refuse to let it shape my identity or yours. There will be no ribbon magnets on the car, no cheering at some walkathon, no fundraisers, and sure as hell no inspirational t-shirts. We'll celebrate you for the accomplishments you choose, and the achievements our family creates for ourselves. Batman, you're always going to be more than a heart condition.

Your first snow day!

Things continue to be uneventful at Dr. Fuckhead's Tedious Carnival of Madness during my notably later appointment times. Yesterday afternoon, the most exciting and noteworthy people I observed were a couple who were both massively obese (and I'm talking three hundred and fifty pounds plus, if not more) whose crappy old cell phone kept making obnoxious chirping and beeping noises when they weren't being used to make outrageously loud personal phone calls. (Seriously: this dude was virtually screaming into his phone about prices for something being "bullshit," how the caller was trying to ruin his life, and other choice gems like those. Whee.) There was a woman tapping her long fake nails irritatingly against some plastic thing she was holding on to, but other than her, the next most entertaining folks were sitting quietly in stereotypical middle-class polite silence while they watched "The Dr. Oz Show," which, incidentally, makes me want to vomit. Nothing crazy, nothing too exciting, and nothing that made me go "holy crap, am I ever lucky to be me and not them." With only two scheduled ultrasounds remaining after this one, I can't help but be slightly disappointed.

I had my now-normal twenty minute wait before going in with one of the ultrasound techs who I've had really pleasant appointments with before. She's young-ish, maybe about my age, and jokes around with you about not being in a good position, which I very much appreciate since most of the other techs seem to think it's somehow my fault when you have your face nestled into, say, my pubic bone. (I mean, where else would I want my baby's face? C'mon!) After doing all the normal measurements and checks, and determining that everything looked just ducky, I shared with her my recently-acquired irrational fear that you will be funny looking.

I am embarrassed to admit it, Batman, but there have been a few things that have become utterly, stupidly, and frankly humorously preoccupying to me in the last month or so. I had something like two weeks of panic - and I'm talking the deeply-seeded, quiet sort of panic that persistently gnaws at your soul, not an immediate "holy shit, I'm on fire!" kind of panic - over the possibility of me not already owning nursing bras and tank tops. I eventually managed to drag your good-natured and accommodating Aunt Katie out to get a few bras, soothing myself at least temporarily. After resolving THAT issue, I started to freak out over not owning enough socks and tiny hats for you. That's right. I was waking up in the middle of the night freaking out over not owning clothing for you that is not only debatably not especially necessary, given how much other stuff you'll be bundled up in, but of which we already had any. Your Dad humored me with a shopping trip to grab those (and a really good thermometer, which I hadn't even realized I was going to panic about not having until I contemplated walking away from the aisle of medical stuff at Babies 'R Us without one), and now I'm just left with a subtle, obnoxious worry about nursing tank tops, which I am hesitant to buy without knowing what size I'll be after you're on the outside.

The new panic - a truly ridiculous one, I hope, given that neither your Dad nor I were funny-looking babies, nor are we funny-looking people (I think) - has been that you will come out weird looking. We know your heart is pretty messed up, but otherwise your growth has been fine, all your other body parts are where they should be and are in proportion to one another, and there have been no indicators that anything else is wrong with you. The few ultrasound images we'd previously seen of your face, however, are...funky. Granted, at twenty-something weeks of development, even the most gorgeous babies probably look a little like a Roswell alien...or Mr. Burns (as your Dad observed of one profile shot)...so it was impossible to tell if anything was actually amiss. This compassionate sonographer yesterday was kind enough to humor my paranoia and fairly literally dig around in my lower abdomen to get a good shot of your face, despite you being pretty deeply nestled.

...and you know what? You're friggin' adorable! We got a handful of 3-D shots, and not only am I fairly sure you have your Dad's nose, but you have the cutest little mouth, pudgy, squishable little cheeks, and NOTHING is disproportionate or funky! Check that paranoid fear off the list. On a not-so-awesome note, my ongoing undercurrent of fear that I haven't been drinking nearly enough has been justified. My amniotic fluid levels are as low as the doctors will accept without popping me into the hospital, which means I need to just drink more (which sadly makes me really nauseous) and try to stay off my feet as much as possible. Oh rats.

These new directions couldn't possibly have been better timed, however, since we just got our first real snowstorm of the year, and with it, your very first snow day! Ah, Batman, you will learn to love and cherish the snow day. Few things are more glorious and lovely than waking up at five-something in the morning, rolling over, discovering that you are being told by your school not to show up that day, then rolling back over to go back to sleep. So, today, instead of dragging my sorry, puffy ass out of bed at 5:20AM and hauling myself forty-five minutes north to be mostly uncomfortable all day, I get to sit around with my feet up, eat yummy breakfast, and watch pretty snow. You seem pretty content, too, what with all the hiccuping and kicking you've been up to. I've got a doctor's appointment this afternoon (gee, really?), but other than that, I think your Dad and I need to do one of our trademark food + movie themed marathons and really take advantage of this complete lack of responsibilities today for anything other than our own comfort and happiness.

(Did I mention how glad I am that you're cute, and not funny-looking? I think I need another pancake...)

I am a rock. I am an iiiiiiiiiiiiiisland...?

Batman, I'm really starting to appreciate the idea of bonding with other future moms at birthing classes or something of that sort, because there is clearly information I am not getting. For one thing, I have apparently been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for close to three weeks now. This is totally normal, arguably a good sign, and really not any sort of big deal, but because I didn't have other women around to tell me "uh, yeah, that's totally what it means when you feel really full and crampy all of a sudden and nothing makes it better except breathing through it, sometimes moving around, and maybe eating something...or not." Here I was with my fingers crossed that I wasn't experiencing some gastric cataclysm every few afternoons, assuming that if something was REALLY wrong, that I would probably have more symptoms than just needing to pee kind of badly and being vaguely nauseous. Talking with a doctor today, I learned that yes, those were in fact completely normal, safe contractions that I have no need to worry about unless they are accompanied by something substantially scarier (gushing or oozing of some kind, or the kind of pain that I wouldn't try to shake off with some yoga or Tylenol, or worse). Why did I not know that before now?

Having weekly ultrasounds to check on your growth and movement, roughly biweekly appointments with the cardiologist to make sure your heart is holding steady, and a general focus on your well-being has definitely set me up for the kind of attention I'll be giving you as a parent. You are the center of the universe, but getting thrown head-first into this lifestyle before you even show up is teaching me a valuable lesson. When I had to leave the gloriously crunchy-granola midwife practice that I loved so much, I basically abandoned any control over or even input into the processes of pregnancy or birth as far as I was concerned. I became a vehicle (perhaps an armored tank?) to convey you through your process of growing, getting stronger, and eventually getting popped out into the world with the best possible resources available to make sure you do well.

This afternoon, I started asking my OB/GYN some uncomfortable questions I hadn't even realized I needed to ask. I've been tending to small needs, like headaches and crappy skin, but because they were too expensive or just another thing to schedule, I haven't even considered birth classes, nursing support, or any of the other fairly key pre-birth prep stuff that I figure most women can focus on. Of course I need these things! Taking a seven week pre-natal yoga class was definitely great, and I learned a lot that I really should practice more while I can still move around (at all), but I don't have any clue what to do when I say, have that first real contraction. I have no idea how to manage the pain that I know will come. I've considered the options that other people can provide for me (medication, massage, something to punch, etc...), but what the hell can I do for myself? I think I need to go to the library for one, since the internet is just too terrifying and awful a place to find any information relating to birth, but I definitely need to get some other resources into my corner.

There is not only a good chance, but at this point almost a certainty that your birth will be induced. This means a number of things, not least of which being that instead of nature (and you) progressing...well, naturally...modern medicine will step in and fuck with a process that really has a structure and flow all its own. There is a greater chance of my needing a C-section, of you ending up in distress, and, at the very least, of me needing to cave in and get all sorts of crappy drugs pumped into me. What can I hold on to? We've got a doula, your Dad and I have each other, and we're at least working with OB/GYNs who don't suck, but is that it? There must be more. It's time to read, network, and talk with other people who have any idea of what I'm going through. This is pretty unnatural for me - a person who typically prefers to suffer in as close to isolation as possible until the pain is healed enough for me to comfortably blurt it out to everyone.

Batman, this just didn't go as planned. From the very beginning, when I was so horrendously nauseous that I lost days on end to nibbling on saltines and watching inexplicably soothing travel shows centered around food (thank you, Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern), my image of myself as some benevolent, earth mother, Sheela-na-gig, uber-holistic pregnancy goddess pretty much flew out the window. Finding out about your heart just sucked; I felt a hollowness that I didn't realize one could feel, and even after finding out that everything is manageable, I've still carried around a parcel of anxiety that nothing can shake. It was insult to injury when my joints started giving out somewhere in the sixth month, and that's been a whole other barrel of laughs. Still, through any and all physical or emotional discomfort I've experienced (which has been plentiful, though certainly not as bad as it could have been), I've still loved being pregnant because I've known that you will be the end result. I just can't be so isolated if I'm going to get through this as strong as I started out...or stronger.

Dr. Fuckhead's Tedious Carnival of Madness: We all sit the same

I am endlessly, immeasurably grateful that I haven't had any of the really horrific, weird side-effects of pregnancy that plague so many women. My skin has always sucked, so that's nothing new, but I didn't get any weird new dark patches, unexpected hair, or funky streaks anywhere on my body. I did have a nasty streak in the middle there where I just didn't know how to eat the right things, or the right times at which to eat them, so I would turn into kind of a psychotic monster when my blood sugar dropped...but at no point have I gotten irrationally hormonal without my own stupidity being somehow at fault. I've definitely felt more fragile during the last few weeks, emotionally and physically, but I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I am coming to terms with this massive change in responsibility and purview; I no longer live just for myself, your Dad, and beyond that, our friends and family; now there's you. I didn't get the magically lush and voluminous hair that so many get, but I also haven't mysteriously lost a ton of it, so I'll call that a win.

I have, however, developed some absolutely hideous joint pain, mostly in my hips. I can only pray it goes away once there isn't another human being jockeying with my bones for space in my lower abdomen. This has cause me to pick up the unfortunate habit of shifting my sitting position constantly, stretching and putting myself into weird poses pretty much any time I'm stuck in one place for more than a few minutes, and while I am not waddling (yay!), I am definitely walking at a somewhat affected pace.

This means that I sit, walk, and generally move like every single other pregnant woman in Dr. Fuckhead's waiting room. We all sit pushed back a bit in our chairs, hips conspicuously forward from shoulders because sitting up straighter means that a baby is practically in our lungs. (We also all inhale fairly deeply every few minutes, and I can only assume it's for the shared reason that we just aren't getting the oxygen we need from normal breathing.) We all cross, un-cross, re-cross, and shift our legs constantly. When one of us gets up, we all lean forward, push up against the chair arms, and generally make some sort of relieved or disgruntled noise as we do so; it's practically a performance. Today seems to be "women roughly as pregnant as I am" day, as all the other women here seem to have bellies of comparable size to mine. When I walked in, you made the seventh pregnant belly in the room.

Much like last week, I am powerfully glad that I scheduled such a late appointment. Even 4:00 is late enough that the waiting room was nearly empty when I hit the twenty-minute wait mark, but I was left with some interesting folks to observe. There was the requisite young-ish couple, the requisite couple of 30-40-ish-year-old women in L.L. Bean couture, and a scattered handful of thoroughly unremarkable women by themselves who looked the standard mix of disgruntled and calm that Dr. Fuckhead's waiting room forces one to feel after a long enough string of waits.

A woman in her late thirties or early forties had been sitting by herself since I came in, and did not appear to be pregnant. I'm learning that there is an entirely different look that people shoot at the door when they are waiting for a person rather than an appointment, and she was giving the door that look. When a teenage girl came out, she sighed and kept texting with resignation. The girl sat down next to her holding a pile of ultrasound pictures and a printout of some kind. They spoke quietly to each other for a few minutes before both started crying almost silently. Clearly, something was wrong...but what? The mother (I can only assume she is the mother) was trying to convince the daughter of something...but what? The daughter kept offering to do something and go somewhere...but what, and where? I overheard the phrases "that's what you told the D.A." and "I asked to have contact," mixed in with low-toned arguments over what one person had requested, or couldn't remember saying. I suppose this will just stay a mystery, but in my over half-hour wait, here's what I fantasized:

This teenaged girl, who never considered herself especially beautiful, was seduced by some B- or C-list celebrity. He picked her up from school in a fancy car, bought her all the trendy...trend...things...like purses, boots, and virtually disposable electronics, and she fell head over heels in love with him. The condition? She couldn't tell anyone - friends, family, or especially the press - that they were an item, or he would call the whole thing off, sever all ties, and deny ever having met her. Being a mere sixteen years old, her ability to keep a secret was just plain nonexistent. Their relationship was soon plastered all over Facebook, Twitter, and her school's rumor mill. The son of a particularly vicious investigative reporter, who happened to have a massive crush on the girl, found out about their affair the day she got a positive pregnancy test. A dubious photo of the illicit couple was taken on some kid's iPhone, posted to Facebook, and within hours, became a local meme the likes of which the town had never seen. The celebrity held true to his word and attempted to cut and run...but the baby! She cried and cried to his answering machine, begging him to marry her and rescue her from a family now stricken with shame and disgust for her choices, but all he did in return was send a lawyer to hound her for full custody. Cleverly, the girl retained a publicity-hounding local attorney who specialized in high-profile, flashy cases to defend her parental rights while doing everything possible to strip the celebrity of resources and reputation alike. Five months of flame-warring legal tribulations later, the girl finds herself the recipient of not only a generous settlement, but full custody of their child with the power to supervise visits between said child and the now utterly disgraced celebrity. A war is won for unwed teenaged mothers, but is a lesson really learned...?

When I saw this girl in the waiting room, I wanted so badly to think that she had earned her place in the Tedious Carnival through some exciting and ultimately personally beneficial chain of events. More likely, she got knocked up by some teenaged boyfriend, and the custody business probably didn't even have to do with her child; she was probably the child in question. Still, as my wait wrapped up (with a totally normal ultrasound), I was left with the odd revelation that even that girl - regardless of her circumstances, however mundane or bizarre they may be - would be waddling, weight-shifting, aching, and groaning just like me in a matter of weeks. In Dr. Fuckhead's Tedious Carnival of Madness, we all sit the same.

Dr. Fuckhead's Tedious Carnival of Madness: An Unexpected Calm

Strategy, Batman. One must always utilize the best possible strategy when managing a tedious and frustrating situation, at least when one has any possibility to employ personal judgment. Today, I had scheduled an OB/GYN appointment for an hour and fifteen minutes before our ultrasound, leaving me enough time for a leisurely visit with doctors who respect my time as well as the opportunity to check out a Chinese/Japanese grocery store that I've been meaning to get to for years. It's thoroughly awesome, by the way, and even with city traffic and parking, it can't be more than ten minutes from home. Super sweet. I managed to get to the parking lot of the Building I Hate the Most (which I should probably get over, given that your excellent cardiologist is in the building and he will be part of our lives indefinitely) with almost twenty minutes to spare...so I sat in the car listening to NPR and eating an apple. No way am I spending any more of my time than I absolutely must in that waiting room.

I checked in with the receptionist at 4:26, starting the clock off much closer to my scheduled appointment than usual. Responsible patient, my ass; if I always wait for at least twenty minutes (usually way, WAY more) I'm not wasting my time. A definite upside to a later appointment is that the wait realistically can't be as absurdly long as it has been in the past. These people want to go home as much as I do once we cross the 5:00PM line, and they don't seem to over-schedule quite as hideously the later in the day you get. A downside? The waiting room denizens are far tamer...which is arguably a major upside as well.

Today there are slimmer pickings for your narrative enjoyment, Batman. There is a guy who can't be much older than seventeen or so who has been drawing - well - on a clipboard nonstop. He didn't look weirded out or uncomfortable, so I'm wondering if he's just a brother, son, cousin, or some other relative waiting for someone's appointment that is nothing outside of routine. There is also a couple who wandered in just towards the end of last week's ungodly wait, and I'm glad they're back if only so I remember to write about them. He looks like an exceptionally shaggy blonde Santa Claus, which makes it tricky to guess his age, but I would place her squarely in her very late forties, if not older. I must imagine she's in for weekly ultrasounds because of her age, but I just think it's so darn cool that she's waddling around with the same pregnant belly I have...and a head of graying hair, a fair amount of wrinkles, and thoroughly sensible, 40-something lady clothes. Despite wearing the same grimace of disgruntlement that any patient in this waiting room acquires after clocking their first hour in this waiting room, they were both obviously really, really happy, and that was a truly refreshing change from the normal.

I get called in to my appointment at 4:44 (shortest wait EVER!!!) by the same sonographer who told us your gender...and that something was wrong with your heart...which meant that she was not only super friendly, but definitely remembered both of us. We joked for a little bit about your stubbornness (which has been consistent from ultrasound #1), but as soon as she started looking at you, miracle of miracles! You quietly lay in place, let her get all the measurements and images she needed, and even spent a few good minutes practice breathing. We were both flabbergasted, me because you cooperated so darn well, and her because she had apparently had a pretty rough day of not having babies in the right positions, and so not really being able to do her job properly. Everything looked great, and you weighed in at four pounds, twelve ounces (53%!), so we trundled home after just twenty minutes.

Just as good as your currently clean bill of health were some directions from my OB/GYN. I got the all-clear today that - after getting results from the three hour-long, fasting-for-twelve-hours-in-advance blood test, which sucked - I do not have gestational diabetes. Woo! The upside? I don't need to panic about what I'm eating anymore. The downside? Having spent three weeks panicking about what I was eating actually caused me to lose some weight, so my doctor literally demanded that I go home and start eating high-fat dairy products as much as possible. I was prescribed ice cream. Practically with tears of joy in my eyes, I asked her "where were you when I was thirteen?" and called your Dad on my way out to add some mint brownie chip to the grocery list. It feels totally unnatural to be nomming down on sundaes and 2% milk all the time, but hey...if it's for your health, too, Batman, I think I can bite that bullet.

Dante missed this one.

One could argue that we had quite a scare this week, Batman. Last Friday, we had a routine ultrasound (at which point I realized that I have literally no idea how many ultrasounds I've even had at this point) that revealed a pericardial effusion – fluid around your heart. Your Dad and I did our damndest not to panic despite the doctor (one of Dr. Fuckhead's colleagues, since his office knows now not to put him and I in the same room) telling us that we would likely need a cardiology appointment right at the beginning of the next week. I think we did any okay job, considering that I only really started to melt down Sunday night, and your Dad kept himself together about as well as he always does (which is admirably).

Now, I've railed against the internet as a source of medical information before, and doubtlessly will again, but this particular medical condition might have been the single worst thing I ever could have attempted to get information about on the internet. One website reported that 44% of babies have some kind of visible effusion at some point during pregnancy, most of which are benign. Another website basically condemned any child with an effusion to death: period. Yet another website claimed that an effusion could only be attributable to one of several specific conditions, none of which you have. I'm pretty sure I stood as much a chance of getting reliable information about this one medical anomaly as I did making a pony appear if I closed my eyes and wished for one.

I got a call Monday morning telling me that I have been scheduled for a noon appointment on Tuesday to get your heart looked at. I'm also told that this is the single available appointment for the week, and that the cardiologist wants to see me immediately. That was comforting. I spend Monday in a haze, stuck in a recursive loop of imagining hideous fates for both you and myself that just escalated in intensity and horror as the day wore on. Much like the weekend in between finding out that there was something wrong with your heart and finding out what the something wrong was, I was uselessly panicked and terrified. Every time you kicked was a stab to the heart; I couldn't settle myself in to the possibility of something going truly wrong, but I couldn't go on as if everything was hunky-dory. 

This morning – Tuesday – comes, and I make the hour drive to work, just to work three hours before rushing the hour back for this emergency appointment. While sitting in the waiting room (for about half an hour, by the way), I start to wonder if doctors just schedule appointments so that their nurses know whose charts to pull...or so that their investment in magazines and crappy chairs is worthwhile. There is clearly no effort to actually have the appointment on time, nor is there any consideration for the patient's schedule. I was nearly shitting myself with terror while watching the asshole black fish in the waiting room tank terrorize his tankmates when I was finally called in, and within about ten minutes, your cardiologist determines that he can't find anything wrong. This effusion, which really isn't as bad as it looked last week, is just sort of a thing that showed up. There is no specific cause, despite the potential causes (none of which were present) being kind of scary, and as long as it doesn't really change, there's not even any cause for additional concern.

For the first time in four days, I breathe. This cycle of panic and calm, tsunami and stillness is definitely wearing me out. We don't seem to be able to go more than a few weeks without some crisis presenting itself, but so far, even the biggest crises are capable of being resolved somehow, and some end up being entirely benign. Of course, even the smallest crises have required what feels like an outrageous amount of effort and energy on our end to muddle through. Today is, of course, no exception. I don't want to sound upset with your cardiologist because he is not only a super nice guy, but is someone I genuinely trust as a medical professional. Even though this morning has assuaged my panic and stopped me from feeling like a walking time bomb, I am absolutely furious that he immediately sent me down to Dr. Fuckhead's office for...something?

I spent close to an hour and a half alternately convincing this office that yes, I am supposed to have some kind of appointment and sitting and waiting with zero idea of when I might be seen. I was in waiting room purgatory, my companions including a horde of chatty women (one of whom I guess must have been pregnant) who were loudly debating the merits of going to Macaroni Grill as opposed to Burger King after an ultrasound, a mother who looked to be substantially younger than me who left her sixteen month old in my care for about ten minutes – without asking or even saying a word to acknowledge why she was leaving or where she was going, and the massively overweight, six month pregnant woman who vigorously complained about her doctor trying to get her to change her eating habits while tossing back a bag of cookies, an entire tin of honey roasted peanuts, and three – count them, three – extra-large Powerades. Oh, and there was a bible-thumping family of four girls under the age of ten with an almost scarily detached mother who all kept loudly commenting on the potential sinfulness of the other people in the waiting room...and a guy who tried to smuggle a lit cigarette in, poorly...and, of course, at least four or five other women who looked as weirded out by all of this as I was.

Yeah. I was finally called in for yet another routine ultrasound, and you were your normal stubborn self (not letting the technician get the images she wanted by picking an impossible position and kicking at her non-stop) and got out quickly enough after that, but I know my fate. I scheduled every ultrasound we'll need from now until you pop out; our fates are sealed.

Given that I will now have weekly appointments here to have you looked at, I'm pretty certain that I need to add a feature called “Dr. Fuckhead's Tedious Carnival of Madness.” This waiting room is filled with such an amazing kaleidoscope of insanity, weirdness, and...yeah, basically just madness. I'm pretty sure I'll feel better about the inevitably torturous waiting if I can write about the craziness I am forced to witness, so brace yourself!

This is what's up with you right now.

I am rapidly becoming a freaking viking when it comes to managing medical appointments. Earlier this week, I had three appointments back-to-back AND managed to cram in a visit to the (almost palatial) NICU where you will be spending a chunk of your first few days of life. Seriously: it's one of the nicest hospital facilities I've ever been in, and because of my father's many health problems, I have seen some hospitals. It's becoming old hat. I walk in, do my best to make nice with the receptionist (hopefully not going on red alert because of a full waiting room or snippy attitude, both of which bode ill), wait, be super polite to the nurse who brings me in, and then just get business done with the doctor. It's easy. Sometimes I get poked: sometimes I don't. Sometimes there are new questions: sometimes I just hear the same thing I've heard before and we laugh about how this will all seem so silly in hindsight.

That's what I need to do now. I just soldier through, making nice and absorbing medical information more complex and important than anything I've ever really had to process before. Everything I've endured - for myself - up to this point has been maintenance or a minor fix. Tension headaches? Drink a little less caffeine, cut back on sugar, try to relax more. Rash? Use some ointment. Legitimately sick? Chill out, drink tea, maybe take some Tylenol, and call back if things don't improve. Now, it's a whole new ballgame. Even the fourth or fifth appointment with the same doctor requires careful attention, since he or she might tell me something about your care that I actually have never heard before. I've started to use a calendar to track all the different appointments, since I think I'm averaging about three per week, give or take a few, and they are massively inconsistent.

I'm getting tired, to be sure, and it's more than a little overwhelming to juggle being an actually good teacher with giving you and me the best care we can get. There's been a lot of driving, a lot of emergency granola bars, and a lot of sitting and basically staring off into space in offices. You, on the other hand, seem to be gearing up for action. You are kicking around like crazy, and I'm only just starting to figure out what sets you off. Here are a few things that you either love or hate, but which you react to pretty consistently:

• Me tossing and turning in bed.
• Your Dad poking you.
• Bagels.
• Stew and/or soup.
• "Invader Zim"
• Back massages (for me, not you, since I'm never entirely sure where any part of you other than your feet are, and those aren't always in a consistent place relative to the rest of you). 
• Dave Matthews Band

I must admit, it is massively comforting feeling you kick around, even when you kick so hard (or against bone) that it makes me nauseous. It's totally worth it to know you're strong enough to do that. At our last ultrasound this past week, you weighed in at about two pounds, which (according to your Dad) is about as much sliced deli meat as the average large family purchases on a Sunday afternoon. Seriously, though: that's pretty substantial! An online size tracker puts you at about the size of a full-sized eggplant. Granted, it's a little creepy to think of you in terms of food, especially considering how much you've been moving around, but you are in my belly...

...and then I called him a fuckhead.

Batman, sometimes you just need to call people on it when they are being inappropriately crappy. This week, I had the (hopefully rare, ideally one-time) experience of calling a doctor a truly naughty name. Now, as you will soon know, and as my friends and family can surely attest, I am neither an angry nor an aggressive person. In fact, I tend to try to avoid confrontations at all costs, often to a point of accidentally letting myself become a victim because I just hate, hate, hate it when people are upset with me.

This neuroses is especially profound when it comes to anyone in the customer service industry; if it is someone's job to provide me some kind of care or support, I tend to go out of my way to be nice to him or her almost regardless of how poorly that individual is treating me, or how poorly they are doing their job. Receptionists, flight attendants, nurses, and doctors have always been a source of particular anxiety for me, as they legitimately hold a fragment of my fate in their hands. In my head, it is virtually required for me to do anything I can to make any person in one of these positions feel favorably towards me, if not to flat-out like me. This week proved for me that not everyone in these noble and not always appreciated fields is deserving of such esteem. (Don't worry about the flight attendants. They're still cool.)

This Tuesday, I left school about an hour early to make the drive from work back to Portland. Now, most people can leave work an hour early with minimal crisis; my leaving work is a far more complicated endeavor. I need to secure coverage for my end-of-day responsibilities, which effectively boil down to outrageously carefully choreographed cat-herding. Thankfully I was able to do so, and (still stressed about creating any change in routine for my kiddos) I scooted my way to the doctor's office. This was my first appointment with the "high risk" OB/GYN practice that I was told (by the head doctor there, hearafter referred to as Dr. D-Bag) I had to - HAD TO - work with for the remainder of my pregnancy.

Batman, I'm sure you recall earlier posts in which I all but damned the medical institution surrounding maternal care. From all I have read, heard, and seen, there is essentially no consideration for patient needs in this system; doctors do whatever fits their schedule and their (or their practice's) financial desires. Drugs and often superfluous medical interventions are all but forced, and patients are backed into every possible corner with nothing more than the excuse of "this is for the good of your baby" to explain their (often mis-)treatment. Naturally, when you showed up I went running to the most holistic practice I could find. As soon as the diagnosis about your heart came about, Dr. D-Bag told me that I could not - under any circumstances - continue to work with a practice that didn't have as explicit a relationship with "the hospital" as his does. To be fair, this hospital does have a regionally award-winning NICU, and we will be working with a truly exceptional cardiologist based there, but...did I really need to work with a terrifyingly restrictive, conservative, and medicine- (not patient-) oriented practice in order to take advantage of all of these resources? My gut said no.

I showed up at my appointment a responsible fifteen minutes early. Even not being a new patient, I like to show up early to appointments just to show that I am respectful of the practice's time. (Some little part of me wants a receptionist to someday either compliment my timeliness, or better yet, give me some sort of gold star. Maybe they make notes in their records of who shows up early and who doesn't...See? Neuroses!) At 2:30, when my appointment was scheduled, several patients had already been called in. I had not. At 2:45, people who had arrived well after me had been called in. I had not. Come 3:00, I meekly approached the receptionist and asked if she had any idea how much longer I would be waiting. I was told in no uncertain terms that I would be called when it was my turn, and that they were very short-staffed, so she could make no accurate predictions. I muttered something about having come early just to be sure I was ready when it was my time, and was thanked for my patience and asked to continue waiting. In the meantime, several people who had showed up after 2:30 had already been called in to their appointments, and a few of them were already checking out and leaving, having FINISHED their appointments. Still, I was not called in.

Come 3:30, an hour after my scheduled time, my desire to please the receptionist had disintegrated into more or less red-hot rage. I could have not only left school at a normal time, but I could have carpooled that day, saving myself dollars in gas money and however much carbon emission that a second car created. While silently stewing (and watching more and more patients be called in for their appointments, then checking out and leaving), I tried to center myself. Sure, I didn't want to be working with this practice, but it wasn't their fault that I needed their services. Even though I was livid at having so much of my time wasted, I had to walk into this with a positive attitude. Finally, over an hour past my scheduled appointment, the waiting room otherwise completely empty, I was called in by a nurse who immediately set my teeth on edge.

Now, here's some simple advice for all medical professionals: when you first meet a patient, ask "how are you today?" or something of the like. This shows that you are a human being, not some sort of soulless demon with a name tag. This nurse immediately started lecturing me about the need to work with her practice, citing all of my risk factors (which were described so obliquely as to leave me more confused than when I started) and, once she got my chart in front of her, berating me for not seeking their highly-medicalized care the second I got pregnant. I seem to have forgotten many of the details of our conversation in a rage-induced fugue, but here are a few highlights:

Nurse: "I see you were working with a midwife practice. Now, since they aren't really doctors, and really aren't qualified to give you prenatal care, I hope you can appreciate that we need to redo their records."
Me: ...annoyed silence...

Me: "I'm hoping to get a better explanation for why you want to induce me at 39 weeks instead of 40, given that my child's lungs may not be fully developed at that point...also, especially since the doctors I've spoken to want me to have as natural a birth as possible, it seems strange to me to introduce chemicals into my system that will almost definitely require more chemicals being introduced, and increases my chance of a c-section dramatically. Is there any more information you can give me about why this is an appropriate choice for my baby's health?"
Nurse: "I don't appreciate your getting irrational about this."

Nurse: "Our practice has twelve attending physicians or residents, and works with several other practices to cover nights at the hospitals, because our doctors are only available until 5:00PM. Your baby will be delivered by whoever is on call when you go into labor."
Me: "What are the chances of me meeting the doctor who does the delivery?"
Nurse: "In the thirty years I've been a nurse working with maternal-fetal medicine, I've never seen a case of a woman knowing the doctor who delivers her child in advance."
*Note: I actually don't know a single woman who DIDN'T know the doctor who delivered her child in advance, and I've known more than a few families who used this hospital.

Me: "I am really not comfortable having a man deliver my baby. Is there any way to ensure that I work with a female OB?"
Nurse: "That is a completely irrational request, and one that is frankly closed-minded. Again, you don't get any say in or control over who delivers your baby. This is just part of how we guarantee that you receive the best possible care."
*Note: WTF?

After about twenty minutes of this sort of round-about bullshit, and four separate occasions of being called irrational, this nurse clearly realized that I was too irrational for her to handle on her own. I was proud of myself: I stayed calm, collected, and focused on the needs and concerns that your father and I had deliberated and discussed in advance. This nurse left me waiting for almost another half an hour while she got the doctor to "discuss my concerns" with me. It was at this point that I realized that she had only weighed me, taken my blood pressure, and listened to your heartbeat; no actual examination had taken place, and there had been zero conversation about how I have been feeling, whether you were moving around much, if I had been, I dunno, pooping normally...nothing.

Dr. D-Bag comes in and immediately goes on the defensive. I am told - flat-out told - that I am making irrational requests, and that what I "have to understand" is that this is a situation in which I have no control, no choices, and should have no expectation of having any input about my treatment. In the roughly five minutes of face-time he gave me, I was told (again) that no woman he works with ever knows the doctor who delivers her baby, that being induced early is non-negotiable, and that wanting a female obstetrician is a hurtful and irrational desire. It was at this point that I called him a fuckhead.

Now, profanity has a magical influence on people. For some, it is a catalyst for further rage, beginning an escalating spiral of violent language, and often violent behavior. For others, it is a neutralizer, negating any potential further action and stunning the recipient into stunned silence or complacency. For people like me who just flat-out hate confrontation, it typically sways me - usually instantly - towards acquiescing to the profanity-wielder's will.

Apparently for Dr. D-Bag, profanity is some sort of secret key code that releases his patients' true desires from the clutches of his fuckheadedness. The second I showed him just how much he didn't want to deal with me any more, he immediately offered to transfer me to a holistic practice of six women, all of whom I would meet during my pre-natal care, and none of whom "pass off" patients to other practices if one of them isn't available. Turns out that getting exactly what I wanted - what I knew from the beginning to be right for all of our family - was completely an option from the beginning.

Not only was I kept waiting (which is mostly annoying, but ultimately disrespectful of my time, as well), but I was spoken to rudely and condescendingly, lied to, and I would have been denied my rights as a patient had I not acted against my gut instinct and called this guy what he really is. I can't believe I let this wacko perform my amniocentesis, but at that point, I didn't realize just how bad he was. Batman, I hope you can take this as a mark of several important things. First, your mother will kick anyone's ass who stands between her and the best care for her family. Second, there is no such thing as "no choices." There are always choices. Third, and perhaps most importantly, I have one hell of a gut instinct.

Turns out that this fuckhead...I mean douchebag...I mean *ahem* "medical professional" is a lapdog to our insane, scary, dumb-as-toast governor. He (Dr. D-Bag) and his uber-conservative doctor wife have both worked to limit the rights of GLBT patients, from campaigning to allow practices to deny medical care based on sexual orientation, to working to flat-out deny lesbian mothers pre-natal care. I might still technically have to deal with this dude sometimes until you pop out, but I've got another practice full of women who buy in to the same philosophy that I do to back me up, and there will be one hell of an angry letter going to his supervisor as soon as I don't need to deal with him again.

Batman, I've got your back, and anyone who tries to stand in my way is going to see a very ugly side of me.

Monday

We're going to see the pediatric cardiologist in a matter of minutes. Here's where I get all manner of superstitious. Am I wearing the right...whatever? Did I say whatever I was supposed to that will make this all magically okay? Did I pay enough attention to this whole situation, or should I have done more somehow? Is there ANYTHING I could do or could have done before right now to ensure that you are healthy, safe, and capable of starting your life as the wriggling, crying, perfect little bundle of human we've wanted you to be?

The waiting has been torture. I've been pretty much shut down all weekend, and today was basically a force of repression and adrenaline. We'll know within the next few hours at least some of what's up, most hopefully that we can just go ahead with everything planned as normal, but at least hopefully that everything will end up okay. A coworker told me something today that is going to be my new mantra from here on out: the universe will not give me anything I can't handle.

Saturday

Oh, kiddo.

I don't even have words for what's going through my head right now. In the last three days, I've felt like I was going to implode - just collapse in on myself and disappear into nothing, like I am a time bomb just waiting for impending disaster, and like there is no hope in the universe for anything good to ever happen again. We went in for the ultrasound that was supposed to be a simple "yup, there's your kid's junk, everything looks great, have an awesome rest of your pregnancy" and then done...but you know it's a bad sign when the technician wants the doctor to come look at something because she has "some concerns." Some dude I'd never seen or heard of before comes in, looks at your little heart (which, by the way, was maintaining a perfect heartbeat and looked like it was doing its job just fine), and tells us after five or more minutes of staring and readjusting and staring again that he's found something.

It's a congenital heart defect. We don't know what kind, what we'll need to do to repair it, or even how serious it is. The fact that things like surgery (even many surgeries), birth not in a birthing center but at the kind of scary hospital-flavored hospital (within arm's reach of a NICU), and the possibility of additional problems (not least of which being the possibility of chromosomal abnormalities) even came up makes me wonder: do doctors who have to share bad news with parents HAVE to share the worst-case scenarios just so everyone is prepared? Is this a strategy to make those parents with kids who will ultimately be fine with minimal intervention that much happier when the diagnosis is not terrifying, and to make parents with kids who will be seriously messed up grateful that at least that first doctor was honest with them? Do they just tell everyone how bad it could, possibly, maybe be to scare them into enough testing to conclusively prove what's wrong? ...or is there really something seriously, SERIOUSLY wrong with you?

We did find out that you're a boy, which is (quite frankly, and for what I believe to be totally legit reasons) exactly what we'd hoped. I mean, of course we'd have been happy with a girl, but we were really excited to see that little set of junk between your legs. One of the most heartbreaking things about this whole situation is that we can't even be excited about that. We're both so completely caught up in fear, uncertainty, and the gut-wrenching horror that can only be the obsessive protectiveness that parents feel for their children. It's sort of amazing how quickly both your Dad and I shifted gears into parent mode. I mean, I'm having an amniocentesis on Monday. Seriously?!?! That might be the single most horrifying, awful thing I can think of having done to my body. I'm honestly more okay with the idea of having a c-section than just one poke with one (humongous) needle, but because it's for you, I'm just fucking doing it. I hesitated and I talked with our midwives about it, but I knew basically from the beginning that it would have to happen...and because it's for you, I will.

Speaking of your Dad, however, he has been a kind of amazing I never realized that another human being could be for another. I've seen my parents help (and sometimes drag) each other through some pretty horrendous times, but I'd never been part of a situation - or relationship - where that kind of shared endurance and support is so abundant and powerful. I know we're only a few days in to this situation, but he has put forth one hell of a start, and I know he's not backing off. I'm really worried that if this gets worse (if it is worse, and if it turns into anything bigger than a best-case scenario), I'll crumble...not for lack of support (and not just from your Dad), but for sheer lack of capacity for what something wrong with you will bring.

Nearly every single time I've felt you kick in the last three days has been agony: there you are, showing up nearly perfect on an ultrasound and meeting every growth and developmental marker there is, except for (hopefully just one) big one. (You also have a double vessel umbilical cord, which is presumably a far less substantial problem, given the fact that it wasn't even mentioned until we were literally walking out of the room.) It's like you're telling me that you're strong enough for whatever: you're practically kicking some of my organs out sometimes, and I'm surprised you haven't started tap-dancing on my bladder yet. You move all the time, and that heart rate...I can't stop myself coming back to the fact that your heart rate sounds and looks so perfect. Because your Dad technically has a heart problem, too (although he's supposedly outgrown it, and it was the kind of thing that almost didn't require attention or follow-up after he was pretty little), he was apparently scared from the beginning that he would have passed his on to you somehow. Hearing that heart beat - which has been progressing normally from the first time we heard it, incidentally - had pretty much assuaged his biggest fears.

Here's where we hope. It's Saturday, September 10th, 2011. I'm not posting this right away because it has just been too painful for either of us to talk about it to more than just a very scant handful of people, and some of them were purely out of obligation. I've told a few coworkers, mostly because I would have exploded at work without someone knowing how destroyed I've been, and of course we've both told our parents. I told your Aunts Anna, Erin, and Leah, and your Dad told your Uncle Cameron. He might talk to a few other friends, but at least until after Monday, no one else is getting into the loop. It just hurts too much to say out loud that something might be wrong with our Batman. I'm leaving school early on Monday for our appointments with the pediatric cardiologist and the lab for the amniocentesis, and I'm staying home on Tuesday regardless of the results. Your Dad and I have spent a lot of time since Wednesday sitting on the couch holding on to each other, so I'm really hoping that some radiant love and intention have soaked over to you, and we walk away Monday with everything feeling okay. I'm not looking for perfect at this point (though I sure as hell wouldn't complain), but I need us to at least be okay.