Sonogram Exploitation

So we have no kids, that much you know.  And before that changes, I need to make sure I get out my baby curmudgeoness IN WRITING so I can refer to it and make sure I'm not doing something absurd if/when the opportunity presents itself.


Let me present my thesis:  I dislike the current trend of sonogram exploitation.  

That's a bit harsh, but only a bit.  More specifically, I dislike cheesy pregnancy announcements and this social media-driven expectation to do some stupid thing to announce that you are pregnant.

 

Let's be 1950's housewives and not let our husband in the kitchen while we bake an artificially colored pink or blue cake and cover it with $20 worth of buttercream so he can't see the cake's color.  Oh, and make sure you do all the dishes ASAP and don't let him help with the dishes in case he sees pink or blue crumbs.  Now he cuts it open and PINK!  Or BLUE!  YAY!  Wasn't that fun?  Meh...   

You're pregnant in the fall?  Let me guess, you're adding another pumpkin to your patch... (insert one of the million photos of pumpkins including one "baby" pumpkin...)  Yeah, we know, we know.

Or we can pop balloons and whatever and see what secret boy or girl surprise falls out.  Sounds like too much work with one's hands... something of which I'm not a particular fan. 

 
(Sorry to this^ family.  I'm sure you're very nice.  But yes, I do think you are ridiculous.)

Whatever happened to just calling people on the phone and saying, "I'm pregnant."  Is that really so difficult?  Does this exciting moment need to be dressed up with staged photographs with words superimposed by photoshop reading: "BABY ____ COMING THIS SPRING!!!!!!"  (Also, one exclamation point is sufficient, please.)


And husbands.  How do they NOT know the sex of their child when you do?  How sad it is that you got your ultrasound alone?!  Or how dumb of you to ask him to close his eyes during the ultrasound?!  Seriously?  That is his child, too!

This pregnancy/gender reveal thing seems new because of social media coercing us into acting nuts, but I recognize that it has been an artificial thing for quite a while.  I remember once I was stuffed into a leader's car on a young women's activity.  The leader was pregnant and an older young woman asked how she told her husband that she was pregnant.  Although that leader didn't know it at the time, she gave some great marriage advice in answer to that question: "I never needed to tell him, he was with me every step of the way."

Imagine that.  Having a baby together with your spouse.  


And by extension, I believe that since your child is adding to the greater context of you and your spouse's combined families, that you have a baby together with the support of your family, too.  It doesn't need to include big fanfare or a meticulously drawn, cut, and pasted craft.  It is about love.

It has taken me some time to get used to Hub's family always asking about us having kids.  White people much more tight-lipped about it, by comparison.  At first I really REALLY hated everyone asking when we are having kids.  I got angsty and sometimes replied things like, "When I'm no longer radioactive from my radiation."  Or, "When my neuro-oncologist says I can."  Those are true statements, but I admit they were said just to rub in that I had cancer and that people should leave me alone about kids for a while, since I have enough to deal with.

But those truthful statements didn't have to be angsty.  If I was more open with my in-laws about the ongoing effects of my radiation, they could support me and they would probably hold off on the kids questions.  Being open about what is going on in your lives-- including infertility-- can often turn what feels like bitter, condemning questioners, into allies and supporters.


Similarly, Hubs has NO FILTER when it comes to what I view as personal information.  People I have never met and probably never will meet know all about my medical history and my subsequent mental health trauma-- things I would never talk about!  Hubs famously got up in church and told everyone, "Yeah, I think we will start trying to have kids on X day..."  I almost DIED!  I have always kept myself to myself.  I have no problem expressing things that I want to express, there is just a lot that I DON'T want to express, and so I don't.  He is not like that.

This trait used to make me CRAZY.  But then I saw, time after time, when he spilled what I considered too much information, that people reached out in support of whatever issue I was trying to keep private.  People in his family whom I don't even know are always calling him up on that phone and checking up on me with specificity and offering their prayers and concern.  (And asking when we're having kids...)


And that is what families and childbearing is all about-- genuine love and support.  You can keep your cheesy pink and blue craft store junk, and you can keep your baby pumpkins.  I have a family who cares.

My Millionth MRI (approximately)

BIG follow-up appointments this month.  I spent hours and hours and hours at Yale in the middle of July.  Honestly, most of those hours were spent letting people try to find my veins with needles.  WORST THING EVER.

When I went for my MRI, I had an order in for bloodwork, so they decided to take the blood while they were finding a vein to prepare for when they needed to inject contrast (dye) to make things show up on the MRI better. 

So there I sit in the waiting room wearing, I kid you not, paper pants.  Imagine paper towels…in the shape of pants.  I’m not sure what Yale has against hospital gowns, but paper pants are ridiculous, not to mention freezing cold, especially with how hospitals love to blast the A/C.

So I’m shivering in my new paper towel outfit when I tell the nurse, “Look, I have small veins, so you might as well save us both some time and call your supervisor over to stick me.”  She ignores me.  I know she can’t handle these veins, but she is confident.

Three needle sticks later, she decides to call her supervisor.

And those had not just been polite little needle sticks, but each was a slow stick followed by pulling the needle in and out, and rooting all around under my skin.  Ouch.

The supervisor tries twice more and, rather than admit defeat, she declares me too cold and relegates me to a wheelchair in the corner where she covers me with wet, warm towels.  I was like a big white snow man, with melting paper pants.  Then they forget about me.

Meanwhile, some dude is having a panic attack in the next cubicle, cussing out the nurses, and faking chest pain to get out of his MRI.

Oy.

They remember me again.  This time the floor supervisor tries, declaring, “I prefer to use the bigger needles.”

Why, Zeus, why?

She even uses the ultrasound vein finder machine, but no.  After rooting around and making me bleed everywhere, I have nothing to show but a lap full of bloody gauze and alcohol pad wrappers…and three more bruises in my hands and wrists coming on.

Believe me when I say that repeatedly hearing the phrase, “Oh, I blew out another vein!” is seriously disturbing. 

Her one accomplishment was drawing some tubes of blood from a vein in my hand.  IN MY HAND.  So much pain...  I just don’t think that is supposed to happen.  My purple and green hands and wrists confirm this belief. 

Then they forget about me again.

And finally, an expert from anesthesiology comes in, and even she needs to try twice.  She implements the slap the patient’s arms silly approach, which is rather painful considering my arms and hands are full of holes at this point.  Then finally, FINALLY I get an IV in for the MRI. 

Meanwhile, I’ve blown hours past my MRI appointment and my oncologist appointment.  It literally took hours to get one, stupid IV in.  At Yale-freaking-hospital.

Fortunately, after having done everything in my power to not cry for the entire morning, things did get better.

After the MRI, I was ushered right in to see my neuro-oncologist (he is awesome)—apparently he sent out search parties to see what the heck was taking them so long to start the MRI (a very good question, dear doctor).  He and his assistant reviewed the images immediately.  Although nobody to-date has been able to give me a definite “cancer-free” assessment because of all of the post-surgical blood muddling up the MRI scans, my doctor was confident that all he could see on my scans this time around is scar tissue, no polyps or unusual things of any kind.

His confidence is so reassuring.  Nicest of all, he gave me some advice—which Jack is very quick to remind me of—he said, you should not be thinking about this every minute of every day, don’t be afraid to live your life.

That was a powerful moment for us.

At Jack’s request, the doctor also gave the green light to go on the kiddie rides at Six Flags, which had someone doing a victory dance… (Hint: not me)

 Boy, do I have a lumpy dome, or what??

And my poor little boneless, metal plate section at the back :-(  Did you know that the metal pinches my muscles back there a bit, so I can’t lay down with the back of my head pressing directly into the pillow?  True story.  I need to have a cheek facing down or else its ouchy…and sometimes I can hear the plates and mesh clicking, which is all kinds of weird. 

I liked this^ because of the pretty colors.  They’ve given me this image in black and white, but this was the first time I’ve seen it in all of its colorful glory, and it is much more fabulous this way.