Wednesday 4 March 2015

Living Dolls

While she's not nearly as insuffrable and obnoxious as Isabelle's Pregnant Co-Worker, I do have my own version of one. Our phlebotomist is pregnant. I saw her exactly a year ago for her yearly Gynae visit. She was excited as she had been dating a new guy for a few months and they would be spending the President's Day Holiday weekend in Monetary as their first romantic get away. Birth control method? My notes read 'using condoms, happy with this method, does not want to re-start Nu.va Ring at this time.' My experience knows this translates to: will become pregnant soon. Sure enough in early March, she asked me to order a beta HCG for her. It was negative and I let her know my door was open if she wanted to talk any further. Later during the summer months, she asked me to "test her hormones". I explained that we couldn't just run them on the spot and reviewed testing FSH and Estradiol on Day 2 or 3 and checking a mid luteal progesterone. I realised that I was also outing the reason why I kept asking her to draw a progesterone level on me. She tried using Ovulation Predictor Kits, but was concerned as she kept getting a negative result. I enquired a little further and discovered she was only testing on one day per cycle. I suggested she test daily until she gets a positive response. You know, like they tell you when you read the instructions. About a month ago, a medical assistant asked if I would order her a beta as she just had a positive test in the office. "She's really nervous." the medical assistant informed me. "She's been trying for such a long time." I resisted rolling my eyes. When we reached the one year mark, it felt like it was a long time. I didn't know that it would take hitting the three year mark for one year to seem like nothing.

As soon as her second beta confirmed a decent rise, (although it was a little less than I would expect for four days) our entire department, and perhaps the entire office, knew she was pregnant. Of course, she wasn't using the OPKs at the time of her conception, which led her to conclude that they don't work and are a waste of money. I resisted explaining that when used correctly, in theory they do work, but the blind pig finds an acorn method sometimes works as well. Her mother came to her New OB appointment and she invited two medical assistants to stay in the room during her ultrasound, because that didn't put any additional pressure on her uterus. Fortunately, I would find she had a viable single intrauterine pregnancy at 6 weeks and 3 days (which she immediately posted as her Face.book profile picture). The next day, she announced that she went shopping for maternity scrubs that night. Yeah, I'm in my second trimester and I still am wearing my normal clothes... I thought to myself. Admittedly, I do sound smug, but I'll own it. This conversation was taking place inside my head as I still hadnt told my entire staff yet. Earlier, I took my designated medical assistant out to lunch to celebrate our anniversary together and I shared the news with her. I also disclosed to our office manager, especially to give her the heads up that I may need to go out early. Anyway, Pregnant Phlebotomist also revealed that she bought a special food processor that allows you to make organic baby food. Um, you do know that you're not going to need such an appliance until the baby is 6-8 months... It's going to occupy space in your kitchen for over a year. During that time, you could have someone give it as a gift for your baby shower, your birthday or Christmas... Or you could also realise that you can accomplish the same objective with an ordinary blender.

When she was only 7 weeks, she told my medical assistant, "I can't wait to find out if I'm having a boy or a girl! That is what is really important. Then, I can start shopping accordingly." Yes, she really said those words, and ironically it was on the same day as my anatomy scan. [At press time, she is 9 weeks plus a few days and she has asked Co-worker 3 or 4 times when she can learn gender, but she has already started buying girl clothes.] Co-worker and I privately expressed our concerns. "It seems as if she just views the baby as a living doll to dress up..." I observed. Co-worker was privy to some background information. "She's still living at home with her parents. The guy is a few years older than her and he already has three kids with three different women. She's Baby Mama #4. Why does she think that she and her baby are going to be any different? I think she just figured that she'll be turning 34 this year and now it's her time to have a baby." We collectively agreed that we hope she starts to appreciate all that is really involved with having a baby and raising a child. I thought back to my first visit with Myrtle after little Myrtle was born. We went out shopping and ran into a girl from our high school class, who is a relapsing alcoholic. "Aww, is she your little Angel?" she asked while cooing over little Myrtle in a way that made me wonder if she were drunk at that moment. "No." Myrtle replied firmly "She's a huge responsibility."

A few weeks ago, in what I warned will be the first of many Holy shit! I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing! freak-outs, Myrtle sent me a copy of the book, The Baby Gizmo buying guide. It's perfect for a novice like me. The opening chapter discusses activity mats and centres, some things I never knew even existed. Reading the chapter about baby bathtubs and accessories gave me some insight on how to bathe an infant. Then the book started to scare the shit out of me. Apparently, 12,000 children are treated for crib related injuries and an approximately 35 die each year. Most occur in second hand and hand-me-down cribs. My cousin offered us her crib as her youngest is transitioning to a big boy bed. Her son used it for two years and managed not to die. What is the expiration on a crib? How many families use the same crib for all their children? [I re-read that section of the book to verify my statistics, and they note that ten years is the approximate life span for a crib as long as it is in good condition. However, they do only recommend only accepting a crib from a family member, so you can verify its history.] I then became even more terrified while reading the chapter on car seats. Infant car seats cause 13,000 injuries and 5 deaths each year outside of the car. Am I going to kill my baby if I purchase the wrong product? I finished the book and felt more informed and organised, yet still completely overwhelmed. It has completely sucked any fun out of nesting.

I shared these thoughts with Husband in what I warned will be the first of many What the fuck did we get ourselves into? freak-outs. He quickly reminded me that I wasn't alone in this. I had someone by my side who would help with these decisions and manage our new responsibility. I acknowledged that I had been jealous of her unbridled enthusiasm and seemingly fearless approach about her pregnancy and it never dawned on me that it could be a coping mechanism. Perhaps she is just as scared and freaked out as I am, maybe even more as she'll likely be taking care of the baby on her own.

11 comments:

  1. My OB asked if I was feeling ready to have this baby. I admitted that I was probably "prepared" but definitely not ready. I was nervous and anxious and pretty sure I didn't know anywhere close to enough about newborns and all their STUFF (that is apparently just waiting to harm and kill them...thanks for that news!). He told me that was good. He was always way more worried about the moms that seemed only interested in things like shopping and clothes and their new accessory baby. Nervousness means you understand the responsibility. This is a novel of a comment already, but it sounds like you're doing everything right. The occasional freakouts are good.

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  2. After we got our positive pee stick, hubby admitted how freaked out he was. It's all you work towards, but when it happens it's a bit of a holy-shit moment. I guess no matter how long it takes to get your baby, it's still something you can never truly be prepared for.

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  3. Yikes, that gizmo book sounds terri(fying) (ble). Well, I suppose it's good to know the risks, but I wonder how many of those injuries were caused by misuse of the product, rather than product itself? I have a hard time picturing how a carseat kills or injures (active tense) a baby outside a car unless it's being misused. I see poeple misusing them all the time too....eg putting baby in a snowsuit before strapping in. It's normal to worry but if product is Jpma approved and not damaged chances are it's fine (I'm sure you know to purchase car seat new). Also no need to get activity centre etc. till baby's older. good luck and have fun!

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  4. I agree with Torthuil- there is a line between freaking pregnant women out and giving helpful information and that book sounds like it went WAY over the line.

    We decided to get a new crib and a new car seat for Izzy. Standards for cribs drastically changed in 2011 so you have to make sure that the hand-me-down crib is fairly new.

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  5. I hear you on the baby products front. I've slowly started to look at what I thought were baby products... the ones that I have an interest in, like the crib, bedding, rocker, etc. But as the reality of the last two adoption scenarios hit, I realized that those are, umm, not quite the essentials. Things like car seats might require a bit of thought. I know the likelihood is that any town we end up in will have a target that we can grab the essentials. But then I kind of panic at the thought of grabbing the first car seat and rushing off to the hospital... what if I make a bad choice??? I guess I'm still hoping for a match long enough that I can get a few things done because I haven't taken the investigation any further than worry.

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  6. How horrible am I?! I never even read those books because I knew I'd freak out!! Babies are wonderful and amazing- but they're scary... I often wonder why they sell so many products if they can cause so much harm!

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  7. Here are some interesting links regarding cribs and SIDS:

    http://www.johnleemd.com/store/art_sids.html
    http://www.cribsforkids.org/ask-the-pediatrician-faqs/

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  8. The amount of baby gear out there is daunting. So overwhelming. Thankfully, my husband is the master of internet research and found our best options for everything because I was like a deer in the headlights. I have been sooooo happy with all of our choices. I know you probably have plenty of people telling you what to buy, but I'm happy to share the brands/models we picked for things if you are interested.
    Your co-worker sounds a little bit like my cousin's mother (my ex-aunt). I don't remember what she was like during pregnancy, but she definitely was only interested in the fun dress-up parts of having a daughter and not doing any actual parenting. Not surprising - she lost custody of my cousin when she divorced my uncle. Hopefully, your co-worker realizes this is an actual responsibility and not just a living doll.

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  9. I've found the choosing of certain baby items to be totally overwhelming. Car seat and stroller in particular, as they're such huge safety products and (at least for the stroller) you'll be using it for quite a long time. We have holy shit moments on the regular. I'm glad to know it's not just me.

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  10. I just don't understand pregnant women who feel the need to tell everyone all the time about their pregnancy. Although Isabelle's co-worker takes the cake in obnoxiousness, yours doesn't sound that much better. I frequently find myself wondering what I got myself into. I feel this particularly strongly when I go through the list of things that I have to make decisions on. I'm sorry to hear about not getting a used crib--ours is used, but I believe it's only three years old, so I've beat NSC's 4 year cut off. I am going to forget that I read this. We have decided not to get a used carseat. At least we still have 19 weeks to figure all this out.

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  11. Even though we had lots of practice with our nieces and nephews, we were still scared that we were getting ourselves way in over our heads! Kind of funny when it took us over a decade to get pregnant in the first place. You'd think we had time to settle into the idea. Those big gadget purchases are definitely daunting. In fact, we have a car seat sitting in the garage waiting to be installed, but I'm too scared to take the base out of my car and not being able to install the new one correctly! And then what if I couldn't get the base back in my car??? Babies are overwhelming, but at the end of the day, we all find a way to make it work somehow.

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