Godmother Practices for Great Godmotherhood

Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 11:03 AM
Subject: Hi! 
Just a quick note to say thanks for stopping in on Monday.  Even though it was brief, I enjoyed seeing your smile and hearing your gentle laugh.  

Hope this email finds you feeling the glow of pregnancy....  I look forward to following the journey with you.

Love you,
Love you more,
Barb 

Here's me at the cabin practicing my rocking skills for Baby!!  

CAN'T WAIT!!  

On Dec 28, 2011, at 11:02 PM, Liz Keeling wrote:

HI Barb,

It really was great to see you, too. Thanks so much for the thoughtful gift. We are delighted to have more original artwork in our home--it's always a glorious treat!

As for our baby news, well, we are excited and nervous. I worry too much--but I think I have a lot to worry about since I have seen four specialists in the past four weeks. But, today's appointment went well. When the doc put the monitor on my belly she said, "your baby's sure showing off today" because the heartbeat was right there: steady 140 beats per minute. We'll have another ultrasound in two weeks as they'll be monitoring my fibroids to see if they are going to cause a problem. So, we'll have new photos, probably. And, a month from now we'll do a 3-D ultrasound to check on the baby's blood flow (we're both at risk for blood clots). Doc talked about delivering at 39 weeks and I told her I was all about it--and that I wasn't planning to be a hero in the delivery room. However she delivers my baby is fine by me; she thought that was funny.

Glad to hear that you are enjoying your break. I spent two days relaxing since I have been home (except for a few loads of laundry and a little bit of cleaning) and tomorrow I go into lock down mode to focus on my dissertation again. I have sort of lost the drive--teaching full time really did it and napping every day for the past month didn't help either. I have to find the inspiration to power through, though.

Keep enjoying your time at home.

Love you lots,

Liz

Letting go of the Message

Though Grandma Sherrock knew at Thanksgiving, she and the immediate family were able to keep their lips zipped until we flipped over into the second trimester. (When she found out, her eyes were lit up with joy over the news. We gave her permission to talk with Pam about it--and to tell any and all nurses she wanted. :-) She told me to take care of myself at least three times.)


Over Christmas break, Dan and I broke the news. I knew we couldn't keep it a secret forever.


At Tom and Mary's, I told Amy Dion Rader that I had bad news. I wasn't going to be able to run my leg in the Dion family marathon relay this year and handed her a coupon for unlimited baby rocking. The cousins and Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom swarmed, squealed and hugged. 


At the Keelings, Dan gave Grandma Keeling a coupon and read what it said. There were more hugs, more smiles, and more squeals. Aunt Rose and Uncle PK hugged me so tightly that I experienced soreness that I had only read about until this point in my pregnancy.


Dan emailed his extended family since we weren't able to join them all in one location. He wrote a 2011 update. When he finished the five paragrapn message, he added a post script that said:


P.S.  We are expecting our first baby in June!! (Liz would say that I buried the lead.)  Talk to you soon!


Both Peggy and Mary called to congratulate us and were surprised that we were able to keep the news from the clan at Thanksgiving. Officially, the news was facebook worthy (and it was time to start/update the blog).

One Scared Nurse

At the end of November, we had our first actual OB appointment. This was billed as the "fun" appointment that I should bring Dan to...even now I am not sure about what was the "fun" part. I was ill-prepared to have a full pelvic exam in the presence of my husband. We did laugh about it later, though. 
I sent this message to our immediate family:


Date: Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 7:17 PM
Subject: Stage: fetus

Mom and Dad and Pam and sisters and bro,

We had a prenatal appointment today and I wasn't nervous, but the nurse was. 

When she listened as I talked about how I really didn't have many symptoms, she started talking to me about how that might be a red flag. (Then she asked me a series of other questions. Like: had I experienced heavy bleeding, what about cramping, etc.) Then she felt my uterus and could not feel the baby. Then she listened for the heartbeat and there wasn't any (which isn't that abnormal this early on).  Then she did an ultrasound using the internal wand and got SUPER excited when she found the baby. She motioned for Dan to come over to look (think: excited waving of the arms, huge smile) and he got to see the pictures. He wheeled the machine around so I could see. It was pretty amazing.

The body was facing us, so we could see the head, belly, knees. It moved (or the nurse moved) and we saw the arms and legs move back and forth. We could see the heartbeat inside the chest. And, it looked like a human being. The picture she printed doesn't do it justice.

So, we laughed about how nervous she was and how she was trying to keep her cool during the entire exam. She was so excited to tell us that she thought everything looked great and was developing perfectly. She thought we were right on schedule for our due date and that all was well. She said she felt pretty confident we'd get through "this last little bit" (3 weeks until the first trimester is over) and that we'd all breathe a sigh of relief. I'll keep you all posted as we close in on Christmas so we can all sigh collectively and then spill the beans to everyone we know. :-)

Love to you all,

Liz

Flurry of appointments

After the injections began, the worry meter cranked up. There was a lot to think about. A lot to ask about. A lot of experts to consult. (I decided my best move would be to try to avoid the crazy momma chat rooms. Those people had strong opinions but no logic or evidence to support their ideas--the English teacher in me just couldn't handle that.)
I did consult a handful of experts. I met with:
perinatalogy
hematology (Located in the oncology section of the hospital. WTH?)
endocrinology
It was an interesting whirlwind through the medical world. I learned more about blood since my stint working with the Mayo clinic team. I learned that pregnancy really adds a whole litany of other possible complications (including microclots in the placenta. Interesting. Scary.). And that the data on clotting disorders was "emerging." As a doctorate student, I knew what that meant. (It would be exciting to be in hematology research, but not too comforting to be a hematology patient.) My endocrinologist was thrilled about the pregnancy; she spent 45 minutes talking about continued care and a gamut of other things. (Including her own baby stories.) At the end, she said "you sure are cooking right along." I guess I was.


It was nice to know that I had a team of folks working to keep everything and everyone safe and sound. 

An Easy Choice

The next day, I began self-administering blood thinner injections. There was no choice, really.


When I pulled up in the clinic's parking lot, I decided the choice was:
take blood thinners to prevent clotting in my body and save the baby from the same fate 
or
risk two lives.
Like I said, there was no choice to make.


The triage nurse said I was a trooper after the training was complete. I told her that I knew I could make this difficult or just embrace it. Embrace it I did.

Viability Verified

Our first ultrasound was scheduled on November 10 (7 weeks, 3 days). In order for me to get a prescription for blood thinners, I had to confirm that the pregnancy was "a viable pregnancy." I laughed at the word choice even though the receptionist/scheduler didn't see much humor it in it.


Viability was verified.
The radiologist walked us through what we were seeing in the blackness of the monitor. 
Me: What is that big black hole?
R: That's your baby.
Really? An empty space would soon turn into a life form. How was that even possible?
She showed us two circles. One was a black circle with a white outline. She said that was the yolk sac and the other one she said was the baby. The images didn't really make this seem very real for me--but, science had proven it was true. 
Then a dot blinked. White. Black. White. Black. White. Black. White. Black.
Me: What is that flickering dot?
R: That's the heartbeat. We won't be able to hear it yet, but you can see it there and look at the waves on the bottom of the screen. It's beating at 145 beats per minute.


For me it was verified and viable. We were pregnant.


The radiologist printed an image for us to take home. I handed the piece of receipt-like paper to Dan and said, "You can carry this one around with you. I'll carry the other one." He tucked it into his messenger bag and showed it to his colleagues the next day. I believe it's still on his desk at work.

First Call

I am a 28 day girl, so when I hit 30 days, I told Dan that I thought we were pregnant. He didn't think so until I announced 31, 32, 33...then we took the test. Science proved to my logical mate that my woman's intuition was indeed accurate.

After we took the home pregnancy test on October 19, we called my parents, my brother, Dan's mom and Dan's sisters. My mother screamed in excitement and when we got Dad on the phone, we asked him if he was wondering what was going on. He implied that the screaming was a regular occurrence--nothing to get too excited about. Happens more often than you think, he said. He thought it was pretty "awesome" news. Pam was surprised; when Dan asked if she was ready to be a grandma, she said she could wait just a little while longer. He assured her she had nine months to prepare. Maggie was thrilled; she called her boyfriend and cried then called us back to chat about it. Beth Ann was so excited, too, and she made sure to know who was in the loop. She didn't want to be the one to let the cat out of the bag.

We decided we weren't going to tell anyone else until the first trimester was over. Everyone on the call list vowed secrecy--though it proved to be difficult at times.

Positive Inspiration

Here's the inspiration for this blog:

There are probably 3.4 billion blogs by new moms, and I am certainly not going to try to compete with the rest of the world for potential press. The intention is for Dan and I to record our thoughts about pregnancy, parenting, relationships and aging for our children, our parents, our family and friends to join this journey with us. 
We know this is a risky venture for us since I am on a couple of high risk lists. So, it keeps me worrying about EVERYthing. As Dan reminds me, "You have to take great risks to make great gains." Fingers crossed.