Kell, you are not my friend

I'm 12 weeks pregnant.  Still mostly sick.  I had one good week, it was glorious!  Then the puking resumed. Super lame.

I don't cook, my gag reflex is too touchy.  My poor family eats out mostly.  The dishes we do make sit there and sit there and sit there.  My dish doing time is the evening and evenings are the worst.  I just lay there and mentally stave off the up-chuck....unsuccessfully.

Now that you have been updated on my ongoing yuckiness, I really wanted just to get our pregnancy woe out on the floor.  I'm no good at hiding stuff, especially if it is affecting my life.

Ever heard of the Kell antigen?  It's kind of a problem for our baby right now.  The explanation is steeped in genetics-speak, so I'll keep it as simple as I know.  Ethan has the Kell antigen in (well, on) his blood.  Only 9% of people do.  So when I was pregnant with Ro, my body was introduced to it because she has Kell, like her Daddy.  For the record, there is nothing good, bad or indifferent about having it....unless you don't and your baby does.

Since then my body produced antibodies against it, it's like a foreign invader.  So my baby is like a foreign invader.  Not ideal.    This only becomes a problem if my antibody response becomes high.  Right now it's low.

High response means our baby becomes anemic and they would do a blood transfusion in-utero.  There is no risk of losing the baby.  There is no long term effects on the baby either.

Low response means that nothing happens.  I just go on with pregnancy like normal, deliver, etc.

So every month I get a blood test to see where my response is at.  And that's it.  There's nothing else they can do.  No prevention, no shot, no nothing.  Just waiting.

Crazy, right?

Disneyland and some sweat

Oh, Disneyland.

I hadn't been in a LONG time.  Twenty years.  Ugh.  I'm old enough to say that I did something "twenty years ago".  Insert whimper here.

We only had one day and, after taking in advice from those who came before, I had decided that we would take it easy...no matter how much I wanted to see, do, experience.  Turns out this was a great idea.  The whole thing was completely overwhelming for Rosie's two year old mind.  I was verging on overwhelmed myself.  For example, upon entering the park and having Mickey march by us leading a band, I nearly broke down in tears.  I felt pretty silly and did my best to keep some composure.  This happened at least two more times while we were there.  Another time was the start of the parade: the drummers and the joy and the fact that we were in freaking Disneyland.  Well, I'm pregnant too.  I wanted so desperately for Rosanna to feel it.  To be overjoyed and in awe.  Nope.

That there is a look of concern.  It showed up many times during our Disney day.  

"You wanna go meet Mickey?!".  Concern.

"Time to get in the ship to ride Peter Pan!"  Concern.

Headed into the Small World tunnel.  Concern.

Small World was a hit, by the way.  Peter Pan....not so much.  Winnie the Pooh?  Winner!  Dumbo?  Winner!  So much to see, do, eat.  We probably saw a third of the park.  Maybe.  I was super impressed with the staff.  They were unabashedly committed to our experience.  Every one of them referred to Rosanna as "Princess".  Nice touch.  Every one of them kept up the joy for the entire day.  It was pretty unreal.  

I'd love to recount every glorious step we took and every moment where I felt like a giddy little kid, but that would only be interesting to me....let's round it up by saying we stayed until 11:30pm then crashed in a fulfilled heap for many many hours.

The whole purpose of our trip was to run a half marathon.  The Disneyland Half Marathon, specifically.  Half marathons are 13.1 miles.  A challenging distance, to be sure, but not as crazy as a full marathon.  

So my mom and I woke up in the four o'clock hour to make it to Downtown Disney for a 5:45am start time. Ugh.  So dark.  SO MANY people.  17,000.  Can you believe it?  Insanity.  The first few miles of the race went through California Adventure and then Disneyland.  There were characters, ready to embrace our sweaty bodies for a photo op.  It was massively cool.  Captain Hook, Princesses, Army Men (Toy Story), Darth Vader, so many!  

We took a few photos, but some of the lines for a photo op were a bit too long.  The rest of the run was through ugly Anaheim, it's only redeeming moment was running through Angels Stadium.  

Being a pregnant lady, I hadn't trained in awhile.  Not eating+puking+zero energy=no training.  I lowered my expectations, told myself I wasn't going to push it.  I'd do what I could, I wasn't running for time.  It turns out I'm pretty rad.  I finished!  Honestly, without my Mom it wouldn't have happened.  I ran with her the whole time, we stopped only for the bathroom, character photos and water stations.  How completely awesome are we?  Had I been solo, I'm certain my negative mind-chatter would've won out and I'd have caught a ride to finish line.  

Crossing a finish line after an intense run is one of the cooler things I've done.  It's so rewarding to have completed an awesome feat, to know you beat out all the aches and negative thoughts and just made it happen.  

I highly recommend it!

Lament

This part of the process is the worst.

"We did do this on purpose" I tell myself.  Repeatedly.  I think it would be less awful if I didn't have to entertain a two year old.  I feel guilty that I want all of our play time to be couch-centric, that way I can be either sitting or lying down.  I'm pretty good at coloring from the couch, block building and ball rolling are good ones too.  A two year old wants to frolic, however, and that is most definitely not a possibility.  I hear myself saying, "I can't", or "Go ahead and do it on your own" and I get a little sick inside.  How can I possibly explain it to her?  The blessed thing hasn't even complained that I'm dud lately.  She even asks if I feel sick.

Then there's the cat who can't get enough of me.  Walking across my tender chest in an effort to breathe in my same air, because curling at my hip just isn't close enough.  For a girl who's in a scent-sensitive state, cat breath ain't always what I want coating my nostrils.  I toss my beloved fur ball from my space over and over and over again.  She's the epitome of cool, calm persistence.  Unfazed.  Still purring like I've invited her to become a part of me forever and she couldn't be happier.

Rosanna's elbows are becoming an issue too.  Why are they so pokey?  Why are they always in my uterus?  In a boob?  The kid has no sense of her impact on other's bodies with her own.

Lastly, all my hair is falling out.  It's extraordinary, really.  Gobs of hair each time I shower or brush it.  I remember reading that exactly the opposite is supposed to be happening right now.  Not cool, body.  I also used to be able to wash my hair every-other day and not look like a hobo, now I'm sporting vagrant quality greasiness within hours.  Ugh.  My body odor is changing too.  Time to increase the power level on my deodorant.

That might be the end of my list of complaints.  Oh, wait.  I forgot the dishes that stay in the sink for days and the bathroom that desperately needs to be cleaned.  I'm over having my face in the toilet and ready to re-establish my old habits as a buns-only zone.

Phew.

"A whisper"

I was paying for my items.  One container of Annie's organic bunny shaped gummies and one container of ginger chews (I'll try anything to soothe the nausea).  I get my receipt, gather the items and Ro is asking me to come down, she needs something.
I'm feeling a bit flustered, I'd refused a bag because I didn't need one, I'm trying to get myself out of the way and now my kid needs me to get on the floor to tell me something.  I think with raised hormone levels comes a lessened ability to deal with regular life stuff.  So I ask her what she wants.
"Come down so I can tell you a whisper."
Ah.  Interesting.  I'm game.  So I kneel down and she aligns her face right up next to mine and whispers, "Guess what?  I love you!"
Oh, dang.  Now if that isn't a heart stopper.  She pulls back and looks at me, beaming and waiting.  I often play that game with her: Guess what?  I love you!  This is the first time she's taken the lead.
I pull her to me and smooch on her soft, squishy cheek.  I tell her I love her too.

I want

When I start to tell my man what sort of birth I want, he gets a bit eye rolly.  I see him shut down a bit and start to dismiss the conversation I haven't even begun to have.  I think he thinks I am swayed by the recent popularity of home births among our friends.  He's right.

I never wanted a home birth.  In fact, I am not sure that I do even now.  I would like to feel less alone, however.  While laboring with Rosanna, I moaned and winced through the wee morning hours.  Nurses would come in occasionally to gawk at the monitor, "So you're the one with the wild baby".  I guess they had been watching my monitor in their area outside of my room, sharing with each other how active my kid was.  Ethan slept (attempted to sleep?).  I felt resentment.  I was doing an extraordinary amount of work, sleeping through wrenching contractions was hardly an option.  It's not as if there was anything he could do.  We could both be exhausted, or one of us could sleep.

And so a big part of my memories from that night are lonely.  And painful.  I really want someone there who has a greater understanding of how to support me.  My husband was likely mortified at my pain, at the prospect of the job ahead.  A mid-wife or doula is what I want.  A woman who can work with my body and guide me through the intensity.  The nurses were useless in this aspect.  To them I was going through the normal process of laboring (which I was), and when it was time to push- that's when it got important.  Until then, I was left to writhe around on my own.

I'm looking for someone to mother me through the experience.  To talk sweetly to me and encourage me while also guiding me forward.  I want this person to know the birthing process as a perfect and awesome experience, not one to be dulled, feared and managed.

Family and a fetus

I really love family reunion time.  It's become even more special since Rosanna is our daughter.  I love sharing our wee-one, showing her off and watching her light up other people's lives like she does ours.  I may as well have birthed a beam of light (although it felt like more).

Family reunion time means seeing people I haven't seen in two years and being with them as if no time had passed.  This year it also meant setting my Rosie free into the wilds of cousin-land to tumble and romp through the grass, throw water balloons, crash legos and play hide-and-seek under a dark sky in the front yard.  This moment of 'letting go' could have been more traumatic for me, but the awesomeness of my family prevailed.  The other kiddos are much older than her, old enough that making space for a two year old during rough play (lots of boys) might have been annoying.  But they were amazing.  They slowed to show her the art of filling water balloons, they stood close enough to let her hit them with one, they were fabulous examples of kindness and love.  I was so touched.

It was perfect and tough to see my grandpa.  He is getting frailer each time I see him and it becomes more difficult to be in a conversation as he slows.  I do my best to avoid thinking of what the end game is.  I overhear my grandma talking about how she can't imagine what that will be like, how utterly incomprehensible it is.  I am so thankful each time I get to hug on him.

After our family beach day, when we were all home, showered and admiring each other's sunburns, I made a discovery that's been a month in the making (we work fast): I'm pregnant.  We told my aunt, uncle and cousin first since that's how it went down last time.  Silly tradition, and it was neat to be with them the day we found out again.  Then we, of course, told everyone else.

This was a momentary stall, however.  We are a bit spooked in the department of getting excited, last time was such a let down.  However, if something goes awry and we didn't tell anyone, then we'd be suffering alone.  I'm not good at hiding.  People can get a pretty good read on me just to look at my face.  And who wants to suffer alone?  So now you know.  We're not expecting the worst, and we're quiet in our happiness.

On a related note- I couldn't be more thankful that the last pregnancy didn't work out.  I'd have an infant right now, and I think that would be a bit too overwhelming.  Rosanna still is needy enough to deserve all of me.  When she's three (when this baby is due) I imagine she'll have pushed away even more and the spacing will be perfect.

Giving - it's addictive

Last night, after swim lessons, after the "Best of the Best" soiree (Old Town Pizza, we're #1!), after we all showed up at home a wee bit pooped from the heat, we decided to go out again.

It started with an urge to help.  The fire that is raging not far from us has transformed our town into a fire-truck town.  They are everywhere.  The fairgrounds is a staging area and looks like a small town itself.  Giant tents set up, emergency folk everywhere, generators, semis.  It's pretty incredible.

So here we are, contemplating our move.  My thought: go get some bread, peanut butter and jelly and hand out sandwiches to evacuees (which we would learn later would have never worked since the Red Cross won't accept it if we made it in our home).  Ethan, brilliant man that he is, suggested pizza.  And so it was.

We brought 15 pizzas to the firetruck staging area and gave them to a man who was a lot grateful and a bit overwhelmed.  They had just received a bunch of watermelons, he told us.  Apparently there is no shortage of generosity, well done community!

Next we made the trek out to Foresthill.  We found the Red Cross evacuee station and were met with smiles and plenty of thanks.  One woman was in awe that we had driven that far (it's about 30 minutes).  Others just looked in shock.  This location was a more sobering experience, watching people's faces all twisted in worry.  An older couple walked past us with blankets in hand to set up their cots in the sleeping room.  It all became very real.

Our drive back, past countless firetrucks, was an introspective one. There was a time when we had so much stuff that a request to get out with what we could fit into a car would have created a panic.  What would we save?  Ethan and I both agreed that our life is no longer so overrun with "stuff" and our list of must-haves is a short one.  I suppose talking about it and actually doing it are two very, very different things.

(don't ask me why this next section is in white..I don't know)

Arrive at today!  Rosanna and I brought cookie and bread plates to two fire stations.  First we went to Ophir.  What an amazingly friendly and grateful group of men!  They were working on their new truck when we arrived and they couldn't believe what we were up to.  I thanked them for taking on the job of 'fireman' and we were ushered in, out of the sun.  They urged us to sit in their new truck (they were quite proud), they took pictures of us and sent us off with a pencil, ruler, coloring book, erasure, sharpener and sticker badge.  They thanked us over and over, apologized for their sweatiness and made us feel like we made their day.  It was awesome.  We also brought a plate to the fire station up the street from the restaurant.  It was a fulfilling day.

My wee-one, driving the big new truck

 She REALLY didn't want to stand with the strange sweaty man, but I made her

 Momma's gotta see the inside too