At approximately 9:15 PM last Friday night, while we were watching old reruns of Alf (the one where he gets caught in the neighbors house and the police come and there’s a hostage situation, etc.), Kim began to feel a sudden and acute pain in her lower back and shoulder which was exacerbated when she took deep breaths. After a few minutes the pain did not subside, and since Kim is not generally one to show as much as pain as she appeared to be experiencing, I cajoled and convinced her to go down to the emergency room to get her “checked out.” Sadly, we forgot to tape the end of Alf so I didn’t get to see the end.

We proceeded to a clinic in town called “PromptCare” which is usually anything but – it’s kind of emergency room light. After a few minutes (if you ask Kim I’m sure she can tell you since it was obvious that she was in a hurry) they took us back, and in less than 5 minutes determined that she needed to go across the street to the hospital for testing. Soon we were wheeled into a holding area which consisted of approximately five “bays” that were separated by curtains, all filled with a variety of folks waiting for care. Kim transferred to the bed and we began to wait.

And wait we did, for about 2 hours until a doctor finally came to talk to us. In the meantime we slowly began to piece together the stories of our various neighbors. The fellow closest to the door evidentally fell out of a golf cart when his buddy took a sharp turn when he wasn’t looking, and severely busted his hip. He seemed surprisingly coherent considering such terms as Perkaset and Morphine were being tossed around. The lady next to us had some sort of hand tremor and weakness in her limbs. Across the way, another lady did not “feel well.” And then there was the lady in the corner next to us.

She had some sort of chronic stomach issue, and had been here before many times. She kept asking if the nurses remembered her, because she sure recalled them “last time I was here.” Personally, I think she was just lonely – every time someone wandered into her area, she chatted them up like it was in the aisle at the supermarket. But when she was alone for five minutes, then the moaning began. Once she discovered we had a baby in tow, she kept trying to have conversations through the curtain. Kim, suitably freaked out by the whole situation in the first place, responded meekly, with that “ok, I’m going to stop talking now” kind of inflection.

In any case, eventually the ER doctor on duty, who was definitely not Noah Wiley nor George Clooney, finally acknowledged us and asked us various questions. (“Where does it hurt? How long has it done that? If you stop breathing, does it still hurt? How long can you hold your breath? Have you considered holding your breath all the time?”) Upon hearing the symptoms, he said he was concerned about blood clots, and ordered a CT scan of Kim’s chest to take a look at her lungs. Soon thereafter Kim disappeared to take the test and I was left with Justine, who, amazingly had been sleeping through most of this in her car carrier.

Kim returned later and we resumed waiting in the ER for the results of the test. Despite more of the “doctor googling” that we’ve become so fond of lately, we decided not to risk transmitting the contrast dye used in the CT scan to Justine through breastfeeding, so we had the ER acquire some baby formula for us to use in the short term – the consensus was 24 hours. We were a little concerned that she’d have trouble taking a bottle in such a strange location, for the very first time and with formula instead of breast milk, but in what would be a recurring miracle, she gave us little trouble.

The results of the CT scan came back negative we were told, although the reviewer mentioned that the scan didn’t do a great job of getting the ‘periphery’ around the lung, which happened to be where Kim was experiencing the pain. We also found that the “reviewer” was actually some guy in Australia, who reviewed CT scans all night for ERs in America while the American radiologists slept. Of all the things to be outsourced…

In any case, we assumed we were good to go. But the ER doctor was still concerned, and somehow convinced us that we should take another test. Our options were a lung scan, which would have required radiological junk and would render breastfeeding impossible for days, or an ultrasound of the legs to look for clots. We opted for the latter, only later learning the caveat was that that particular test could only happen in the morning, some 6 hours away. We settled in for a long night in the ER holding area.

Amazingly, Justine slept from 11 o’clock Friday night until 7 AM Saturday morning. When she awoke, she was hungry and had no issues taking formula from the bottle, and then went back to sleep for a few more hours.

Finally, after everyone else in the ER had gone home, Kim finally disappeared for her ultrasound, and I began gathering our stuff for our impending return home. Then the new ER doctor walked in, and told me that the local radiologist had awoken from his hibernation down in the cryogenics lab, and re-examined the CT scan and determined that Kim had indeed had a clot, a dreaded pulmonary embolism. When Kim returned from her ultrasound, I gave her the news. Shortly thereafter we were moved to an actually ER room where we were finally alone for a while, to let the gravity of everything sink in.

Over the next few hours, we learned that Kim actually had a few large clots (apparently yet ANOTHER radiologist reviewed the scan), that the treatment was a combination of a large, short term does of Heparin and a longer term, daily dose of a drug called Lovenox, both of which are blood thinners. We also learned, much to our chagrin, that she would be admitted for 1-4 days (depending on who you asked) to receive the heparin (via IV) and to be monitored. Eventually we were admitted and transferred to the Cardiac wing, and Kim was hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV and began the road to recovery.

We were, mercifully, given a single, which was probably more for the benefits of all the elderly, heart disease ridden folks who’d rather not spend their convalescence with a screaming baby next to them. We were certainly the darlings of the floor, for a variety of reasons, including 1) we were the youngest by probably 40 years, 2) we had an adorable 3 week old baby, and 3) my dashing good looks (a few nurses actually swooned at my presence). The nurses were absolutely wonderful, bringing us all kinds of things for Justine, including a bassinet from the NICU, bottle after bottle of formula, sheets, towels, a kitty cat, a swingset complete with slide, and a slip and slide to keep us having fun. Also, beer for me.

We spent the next three days in the hospital, with Kim eventually switching from the IV drip to belly shots, (not that kind), Justine from formula back to breast milk, and me from “seriously freaked out” to “less seriously freaked out.” I slept beside Kim on one of those comical “sleepchairs” – you know the one that looks like a plush chair but if you massage it just right it folds flat for sleep purposes. I thought that it would be extremely uncomfortable, but exhaustion instead knocked me out each night.

Finally, Tuesday morning came and we were discharged. We are home and resting comfortably. It was a scary few days.

—–

Anyone still here? Questions?

Q: What caused the PE (pulmonary embolism)?

A: We don’t know at the moment. The obvious answer is pregnancy, but there are also genetic concerns. Kim had blood taken that will be tested for genetic markers to determine if that may be the culprit. Her family has no history of it.

Q: How do they treat the clots?

A: In essence, they don’t. All the blood thinners are to keep the clots from expanding, and to prevent new clots from forming. The existing clots slowly dissipate over time, which is why the pain will linger for a few weeks until they are gone.

Q: What’s the long term affects of the issue/treatment?

A: Nothing terrible. She will be on the Lovenox (twice daily injections) for 4-6 months. When we have more children, she will have to go back on the Lovenox for the duration of the pregnancy and for several weeks after birth. Other than that, there aren’t many restrictions, other than to avoid “excessive cutting” and “blood sports” while on the Lovenox.

Q: What is the capital of Montana?

A: Helena

Q: Was it scary?

A: Initially, not so bad. After the words “pulmonary embolism” came out it became a lot more scary. That has subsided somewhat, but now we are both in that phase where every pain or tingling or difficulty in breathing immediately brings the whole issue to the forefront again. Anyone that has gone through similar issues is familiar with that.

Q: Is she still in pain?

A: Not really – she still can’t take a deep breath and she still has some shoulder pain, but it’s manageable with Tylenol.

Q: Now that you are home, have you looked up the ending of the Alf episode?

A: Actually yes. Willie Tanner snuck into the house, and had Alf hide in a hamper while he put a walkie-talkie in a window. Then he convinced the police that it was some prankster just radioing in the hostage situation. Everything ended happily – once again wise cracking ALF avoided the dreaded ‘alien autopsy.’

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes our briefing. Stay tuned for a return to our regular blogging entries.

We rose early on Monday, Kim making me a wonderful breakfast of eggs benedict (with a marvelous hollandaise sauce) while we sat out on our veranda, watching the sun rise and cherishing potentially our last moments sans-children together. Actually, I stumbled out of bed at the last possible moment, fell asleep in the shower and wolfed down a couple pop-tarts while Kim gathered all of our things for the hospital and spent a few minutes staring longingly at all the food she was not allowed to eat because of the procedure. We piled our stuff into the car and headed off to the hospital.

It was a bit unnerving to take the elevator right up to Labor and Delivery.  While we both had a gut feeling that today wasn’t ‘the day,’ we still had to go into this procedure assuming that it would be.  For all we knew, we’d be coming back down this elevator in a few days with a screaming baby rather than in just a few hours with all of our unused gear.  Needless to say, the elevator ride up was pretty silent.

The nurses station quickly put us in a room and began the laborious process (no pun intended) of completing all the various tasks that necessitated our early arrival (again, no pun intended).  There were, of course, questionairres to fill out, more paperwork to sign, even more blood to be drawn.  By far the worst thing they had to do was to put an IV into Kim, should the need arise in the event of an emergency.  Kim had never had an IV before and had assumed that it was pretty much the same as giving blood.  Turns out in this particular case the IV they put in had to be, for various reasons, about the size of a garden hose.  Ouch.  Kim was also hooked up to a fetal monitor to make sure everything was good down there.

We got to meet all sorts of folks while we waited for our diminuitive OBGYN.  Suzanne, our nurse, was absolutely wonderful, and talked to us at length, answering our questions about nearly everything.  She handled most of the pre-procedure stuff.  We also met an anesthesiologist, who scared the crap out of us (which is apparently what anesthesiologists do) with a wide variety of worst case scenarios.  (“Should a lightning bolt strike your gurney during an emergency procedure in the operating theatre, we immediately knock you out with an ether-infused rag.”) Our last visitor before the procedure was “Mark,” (no relation) a medical student who “won” the opportunity to observe the version and was “very excited” to do so.

Just minutes before the procedure, in came a resident with a fancy ultrasound machine, to both a) make sure that Chi-Baba had not suddenly come to his/her senses and rolled over and b) to provide some fancy visuals during the version.  She gooped up Kim’s belly and waved her magic wand, and then this confused look came over her face – not something you want to see a doctor do.  See, apparently our fetus was in a very, very odd position.  She figured out, with no help from “Mark,” that the baby would not be able to move the 90 degrees down to lock into position, but would, in fact, need to roll 270 DEGREES to get where he/she needed to be.  Kim and I figured out at this point that this probably wasn’t going to work.

Finally our OBGYN arrived, and wasted little time getting into position to do the version.  She was going to push on the head, while the resident would push on the butt.  The medical student’s task was to keep the ultrasound wand on top of the baby’s heart to monitor it during the move.  We were ready.

Well, at least Kim and I were.  We both noticed that the two women were about to push in the SAME direction.  I’m no geometry expert, but i doubt something will rotate if you push both ends of it the same way.  We mentioned this to them (rather forcefully) and they went back into the huddle.  After some ‘chalk talking’ and a review of the playbook, they were on the same page.  “Mark,” on the other hand, had absolutely no idea what he was doing.  One of the key’s to successfully ultrasounding is “firmly pushing” the wand into the gut – something our med student seemed to think really meant “feather touch”.  Thus, detecting a heart beat was at best a hit or miss affair for him.  One would think his ability to do this would be key to this whole affair, but the doctor’s seemed non-plussed about it, and so we didn’t worry.  Well, maybe a little.

With everyone set now, the version began.  I was shocked.  It’s hard to describe what they do.  Well, actually it’s kind of easy.  Our OBGYN pushed REALLY HARD on the top part of the womb while the resident pushed REALLY HARD on the bottom part of the womb, while Kim looked to be in A LOT OF PAIN, while I tried to calm her down with A LOT OF PRAISE and “Mark” looked like a “DEER IN HEADLIGHTS”.  I’m amazed that what they did to my wife is a) an accepted medical practice b) apparently ok for the baby and c) not illegal.  I looked down at one point and Kim’s tummy was basically compressed into an 8 inch area and both doctors looked like they were moving loaded bookcases. Frightening.

As quickly as it began, it was over.  It became obvious that this stubborn little monster had no intentions of moving.  It was an emotional epiphany for us, because it meant for sure that a C-Section was in our future, something that we had considered a ‘worst-case scenario.’  Our doctor assured us it wasn’t anything that we did, that these things happen, that things are darkest before the dawn, there are many fish in the sea, and a variety of other colloquialisms that weren’t germaine to the situation at all.  After a bit of consoling, the room emptied out and we were left to ourselves to pick up the pieces and wait as they monitored the health of the baby after the ‘violence.’

After about an hour, we were released, and took the long walk back down the hallway to the elevator.

The way is now clear for us – we will be back to finish this journey.  And soon.

Humpty Chi-Bumbty sat head up in the womb,
Humpty Chi-Bumpty soon ran out of room.
All the hospital nurses and our OBGYN,
Couldn’t turn Chi-Bumpty around again.

Let me paint a scenario for you.  Imagine that, despite the exorbitant cost and almost assured hurricane, you fly off to some Carribean island for some well deserved rest and relaxation.  After a few days lounging around the pool, you head down to the local piazza and discover the BEST TOMATO SAUCE you’ve ever had.  You buy a few bottles to take back to the States and head back to the resort to try and figure out how you ended up in Sicily.  You carefully wrap your bounty inside a few paper bags,  tuck that into a sock and then try to insulate it well inside your suitcase.  And then you head to the airport, and watch as they toss your checked bag onto the conveyer belt like it was filled with packing peanuts and not little glass bottles of tasty but maximum stain formula tomato sauce. And then you have to sit on a plane for hours, in constant worrying that those bottles exploded in your bag.

In many ways, that is what pregnancy is like.  Constantly worrying about something you can’t see and/or control.  It eats at you, especially late in the pregnancy.  Little things become tiny icebergs of worry -  a small, potentially irrelevant symptom that hides hours of needless fretting under the surface.  If the baby doesn’t move as much as yesterday, is there an issue?  The baby has hiccups all the time, but not today – is something wrong?  I just sneezed twice and then had a twinge in her knee – is the fetus in distress and manifesting it’s symptoms telekinetically through me? These are the kinds of thoughts that begin to infest your waking (and in some case nonwaking) hours.

It was within this framework that we headed in for a checkup.  Our doctor’s visits have become so numerous lately that I haven’t bothered blogging about them individually.  We had switched previously from monthly visits to bi-weekly visits, and now we have to stop by once a week so that they can measure how everything is progressing.  They are mundane affairs – urine samples, blood pressure cuffs, Doppler readings (listening to the baby’s heart), and of course breathalyzer tests (I always pass – I never drink booze until lunch).  The doctor also whips out an old school tape measure and measures the size of Kim’s belly, saying things like “oooh you are getting big,” and “looks like there’s a fundus among us!”  This was ritual for us for quite some time – visit after visit.

That is until a few weeks ago, when the last test (the tape measure) came up a little short.  The doctor wasn’t overly concerned, but told us she wanted an ultrasound just to make sure that everything was ok.  We were pretty sure everything was, but we welcomed the thought of another ultrasound to get one last look at ChiBaba in the hopes we’d get some better, more human looking pictures.  Thankfully they were able to get us in that day with the sonographer we had previously with the whole “quart low” situation.  While we both liked the technician, neither of us had fond memories of the last round of ultrasounds, and so I think we both went into it was a bit of trepidation.

Kim and I reconvened for the ultrasound that afternoon, and we were quickly ushered into the sonography theater.  The woman quickly went to her task, taking all the measurements necessary to confirm that the baby was within tolerable limits.  While a little on the small side, the wriggling thing was definitely within acceptable constraints.  We breathed a sigh of relief – everything was fine…except that our stubborn little offspring was laying in the breech position.

For those unfamiliar, the breech position basically means that, rather than hanging upside down in the womb like a normal child (which I thought was odd – who’d want to be upside for months?),  our bundle of joy had wedged itself with his/her head jammed just below Kim’s ribcage, with it’s butt down by her pelvis.  This is a less than ideal situation apparently, because it turns out that babies don’t come out butt first particularly well.  Imagine trying to pull an opened umbrella out of a ten centimeter round hole in the wall and you can see where that would be difficult for all involved.

A breached baby is not usually dangerous for the fetus – it just means that if, when all is said and done, the thing doesn’t turn into the right position, a pretty unescapable conclusion rears its head: the c-section.  Which, in our situation, is a worst case scenario.  Kim wants to be drug free, and a c-section is about as opposite of that as can be.  In some states, they actually administer crack-cocaine to the laboring woman to make the surgery as pain free as possible.  So this looming possibility is an unnerving one for us.

The sonographer of course told us she would relay this information to our doctor, and that we could discuss with her our options.  Kim prodded her a bit about what we could do to help Chi-Baba figure out the right path.  She paused, and then told us to hang out for a sec.  She returned a few minutes later and – I’ll never forget this – handed us some literature. “I looked up ‘tranverse breech’ on the Internet and found some pages on ways to turn the baby.” I was dumbfounded.  While I like our technician, she just Googled answers off of the Internet for us.

How much do I pay for this expertise?

In any case, we left the sonographer’s with mixed feelings – the size issue was, in fact, a non-issue.  But now we had this breach thing to contend with.  There was plenty of time for the baby to turn, but would it?  Would this whole issue cloud the big baby shower in just a few days?  Will I be able to sleep at night?

Sigh.  Damn tomato sauce.

Our appointment was on a Wednesday morning and we left with the understanding that our doctor would call us later that afternoon to discuss the results. I returned to my day job generating nonsensical strings of data (if isEmpty(coffee) then goto break_room) while my wife went her nanny gig (if baby = screaming then apply ether). And the waiting began.

And continued.

Through pointless meetings and tiresome conference calls.

Through cup after cup of ‘coffee flavored water’ or whatever the swill they serve us is.

And when the work day ended, and we reconvened with the cats (and rabbit) it became apparent that no call was forthcoming that day.

Once you reach this conclusion, the road of possibilities forks a bit. One avenue of thinking suggests that ‘no news is good news’ and that everything is fine. I think everyone outwardly displays this brash optimism, banking their mental health on a doctor’s triage abilities – ignoring of course in this particular instance that said doctor could be squatting under some prego in a hospital somewhere waiting for a baby to drop rather than worrying about my wife being a quart low.

The other road is to sink into those dark recesses of your mind where the twin terrors live – ‘Johnny WhatIf’ and ‘Charlie WhyDidEye.’ We certainly took a brief visit there that night – Charlie whispering into Kim’s ear and Johnny into mine. Sleep was fleeting that evening.

Morning brought little relief, except for the calming, eternally gray skies. Oh Syracuse – why hath the sun forsaken thee?

Finally, mid afternoon we got some news from our doctor. Yes, the levels were a little low, as was the placenta. But ’stomach discomfort’ of the ‘gross’ variety could definitely cause dehydration and low fluid levels. They wanted a followup ultrasound sooner rather than later to see if the levels had rebounded. Kim, in no mood to wait any longer had it scheduled for the next day.

In the meantime she would continue her new hobby – attempting to consume an entire swimming pool’s worth of water in two days…

Thought i would leave you hanging again?

Friday morning we once more met with our sonographer, who now knew our names, what we took in our coffee (Sweet and Low for me, Kahlua for Kim), and probably how much we really weren’t fond of seeing her anymore. She was all business this day, and once more the magic wand Harry Potter’d its spell of visibility on our unborn child. Lo and behold, after ridiculous amounts of liquids, Kim’s fluid level was a full point above where it had been a few days ago. This is apparently a quick turnaround. It was at this point that we began asking about the numbers.

According to our sonographer, the “normal” range of amniotic fluid levels is between 10 and 20 (gallons maybe?) Kim’s newly determined elevated level was a 10.9 – on the low side but still inside the safe range. This, of course, begged the question from us – what exactly was the level before? Oh, she said, it was a 9.7.

…

9.7? That’s not really that far below 10, is it? It even rounds up to 10? I mean, if I said to you, “Hey, [insert your name here], we’re running low on beers – normally we have 10-20, but right now we only have 9 and 1 can somebody took a few sips of,” would you lose sleep at night? Yeah, well, that’s what essentially happened to us. If we had actually known the numbers, maybe I wouldn’t have had to watch that 4 AM infomercial for that local leather store in which the entire family of thickly accented displaced Brooklyner’s attempt to peddle leather gloves, hats, jackets, scarves ad socks to insomniacs like me.

Well, regardless of “how it went down,” everything turned out to be fine. The ship has been righted, justice has been done, and we can sleep well at night, confident in the knowledge that Kim’s amniotic sac is quickly filling with fluids. Well, I can sleep at least – she has to get up at eight times at night. All that water I guess…

And so we found ourselves back in the waiting room.  Our appointment was at 9:15, a few minutes later than the last, but the difference was astounding.  Instead of one other patient, it was standing room only.  I bribed the maitre’d for a few seats, and we took our place amongst the crowd.

Frankly, sitting amidst both pregnant women and women with regular GYN appointments was a bit unnerving – I felt at some point all the hormones might consume me and I would start craving chocolate, assuming I looked fat, and hating my husband for ‘this spawn in my belly’.  One woman ‘afflicted with the preggers’ was pounding what appeared to be Coke – after many knowing glances of the sisterhood of pregnant women, I discerned after some prodding that this is some sort of glucose test, or possibly the Pepsi challenge.  Needless to say, when they finally called us back, I was elated to escape.

Within minutes Kim was on the table, and the white noise that is our unborn child graced the screen.  Things were definitely the right size now, we were told happily, and our sonographer went about happily drawing lines around amorphous sensor blips, saying unverifiable things like ‘that’s your placenta’, ‘nice uterus’ and ‘Fruit loops for breakfast? I thought so.’

After a few minutes, it became clear that our technician was having difficulties, stating that Chi-baba was acting stubborn (big surprise) and being shy (again, surprise).  He/she tucked into a ball and was hiding behind my wife’s pancreas, or in a Fallopian tube or something.  I wasn’t paying too much attention, as I was trying to find the right moment to ask if the technician had poor reception on her family TV as a kid and had an uncanny knack for making sense of the distorted version of Three’s Company while the rest of her family sat befuddled. She had Kim go empty her bladder in the hopes that it would ‘make room’ down there.

It didn’t help too much – the kid was content where it was.  She had gotten her measurements though, so she starting wrapping things up.  She handed us a few pictures she had taken, but they were mostly garbage  because of the uncooperative fetus.  She looked at them, paused as if to say ‘I’m the best damn sonographer in these parts and I can do better than this,’ and then had Kim lie back again, to get some better pics. And, on cue,  that’s when the trouble began.

She began her search for candids, perhaps with baby ‘vogueing’ or something, when it occurred to her that she had not checked Kim’s amniotic fluid levels.

Now, me being me of course, immediately pictured some sort of dipstick being pulled out to measure this sort of thing, but apparently drawing dotted lines with an Asteroids style trackball works just as well.  The technician’s demeanor changed, as if she had just discovered that ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ was, in fact, butter.  She then asked one of the most asinine and ridiculous questions I have ever heard, to the point that I had to keep myself from doubling over in laughter.  She asked if Kim drank enough water.

Now you may not be aware of this, but I’m reasonably sure that my wife is partially a fish.  We go to Sam’s Club nearly every week to purchase 5 gallon jugs of water, as well as 24 bottles of water for when she’s ‘on the go.’  I’m certainly not drinking all that water (unless it’s mixed with whiskey, and I usually just use the water out of the fountain at work when I do that) so you can imagine the ridiculousness of the question to us.

Regardless though, the reality was that the fluid levels were ‘outside’ the recommended range, and one of the causes of that is dehydration.  She left to speak to a doctor about it (who turns out to be the husband of our regular doctor) and returned to tell us that Carla would call us later that day regarding the issue.  She mentioned, after some pressing, that one treatment for low fluid levels is bedrest – a statement that again elicited guffaws deep within myself which I stifled before they could reach the surface.  Kim on bedrest – that’d be like trying to keep our cat from one of Kim’s hair ties – you can try, but you’ll probably get hurt in the process.  Anyway, other than that, she wouldn’t really tell us anything.

We left, suitably freaked out, but hopeful that because the technician didn’t notice the issue until the end of the appointment, that things were still good.  Kim also realized, on the way out, that she had been significantly ill, in the bathroom sense, the night before, which probably sapped a lot of hydration out of her.

But once again we were at the mercy of the phone for our salvation.

It was a new and different location, so we left ourselves plenty of time, and rolled into the office at 7:45 for an 8 am apt. Not surprisingly, we were the only patients there for awhile, until another clearly pregnant younger woman strolled in and gave us a look as if to say ‘ha – you call THAT a bump?’. I briefly considered ‘taking it outside’ but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have taken her – ‘mother lion defending her cubs’ and what not. Regardless, in short order we were called into the back and followed the technician to the exam room.

Now, we had been told that this sonographer was ‘the best’, but since she happened to work in our doctor’s husband’s practice, I had my doubts. But she was tremendous – we were in there for 3 seconds and she had the goop on Kim’s stomach and was already pushing the wand around looking for Chi-Baba. And that’s when the troubles arose.

Nothing bad, of course. Didn’t mean to scare you. See, the issue that was immediately apparent to her (not to us – I felt like were watching a scrambled movie – you could kinda make out what was going on but it wasn’t particularly satisfying) was that our doctor had overestated the age of the baby. They had us close to 19 weeks, but the sonographer (after drawing dotted lines to measure – uh – ‘body parts’ or at least ‘amorphous fuzzy blobs’) estimated us at 17 weeks, 3 days. (which is a very specific estimate by the way). Consequently, she told us, she couldn’t make out enough that was going on in there, other than the cereal Kim had for breakfast (had no idea she swallowed fruit loops whole).

The end result is that we need to go back in a few weeks for another ultrasound, which is fine with us. Finally, after all the technical stuff, she went about trying to take some pictures for us, which i have posted below. We’re pretty sure now, unfortunately, that it’s not a kitty (much to the relief, I’m sure, of that male stray cat that hangs out around our house). And now we finally have some baby pictures we can put in our wallets and show people when they ask about the pregnancy (‘here’s it’s leg’, ‘that’s either a spine or there was a lizard under the exam table’,'that, apparently, is a very cute pose, we’re told’,etc.)

We have another appointment for a regular checkup in a few weeks, and then the ultrasound after that. I hope the kid doesn’t expect this kind of attention when it comes out…

Click on any image to view an enlarged version.  Print out each picture and play “Guess the Gender” with your family.  Or at least “Fuzzy Blob: Part of Baby or Part of Kim’s Guts?”

Baby spine or random lizard?

The Baby is’Vogueing’ – Hands in front of his face from a top down perspective.

Some picture of the baby – with a Roswell looking face that is apparently the baby’s stomach.

The ‘whole shabang’ – you can see the leg and spine.

The ‘leg extended’ I’m told.

After a seeming eternity, we finally had another baby appointment. Our last was just after our return from Las Vegas, back in November, and so we were happy to see the doc again and make sure that everything is going ok. If you’ve never had kids before, I’ll give you the heads up that, at least for your first kid, you will worry when pretty much anything odd happens. Weird pains, excessive fatigue, excessive energy, spontaneous yodeling. Honestly, I think half the reason we visit the OBGYN so often during pregnancy is to keep us sane – the reassuring “it’s fine, really”, “that’s entirely normal,” and “that particular condition only affects penguins so I doubt it’s an issue” from a qualified physician really allays fears – at least for a few days.

Anyway, the coming of the new year, in addition to bringing us yet another dubious reason for Ryan Seacrest to invade my life, found us traveling to our doctor’s new office, which was a bit further from the old office. The new digs are definitely nice – much more spacious than the older, cramped office. The only issue is that, of course, we rolled in on the first day of operations in the new office. No one was really sure what to do – we went to the main office and they gave us a sheet and told us to go to another office. The lady in that office wasn’t sure what to do with the sheet, so she told us to hang onto it and give it to the doctor. Then another lady came in, grabbed our sheet and gave it to the other lady, who then told her to give it back to us. Then a circus clown walked in with a pregnant poodle in a tutu, and everything went to hell. And to top it off, the cable wasn’t hooked up, so I couldn’t get my Regis and Kelly fix.

After a shorter wait than normal (apparently in all the confusion they forgot about the interminable wait) we were ushered in to an exam room. After a quick sprint to the bathroom for the requisite urine sample, it was Kim’s turn. After she finished giving her sample, she stopped at the scale, and then again we found ourselves waiting for Fran Drescher. In she bounded, a bundle of energy in a 5 foot frame. And for once, she spent some genuine quality time with us. Usually, we feel like she’s got the Virgin Mary in Exam 2 and she’s gotta get through us quick before she can go check in on a fetal Jesus, but this time she was chatty. She asked about the optional tests (we said no), asked how Kim was feeling (2 parts tired, 7 parts awesome, 1 part peeing), and whether we had any other questions. The only one we had was flying – the answer is apparently up until the last month, simply because after that point it’s very hard to fly the plane with an engorged stomach pressing on the wheel.

After the chat, it was down to business. The doc reached for something she called a Doppler, which is apparently OBGYN slang for “tummy microphone.” This particular Doppler, she explained, was not her “favorite” Doppler, which apparently had been misplaced in the move, or possibly loned to Channel 9 weather. In any case, she rubbed goo on Kim’s stomach and preceded to fish for our baby’s heartbeat. After a few minutes, she declared that she could hear the heartbeat, but that we could not, again due to this ‘lousy doppler’. So, much to our great delight, she ran up and down the halls in search of the portable ultrasound machine. After some searching, the device was found and wheeled into the room. She hooked it up and within moments we were feasting our eyes upon the visage of our unborn child, which, I am disappointed to say, appears not to be a kitty.

The fetus, complete with arms, legs and such, didn’t seem to be a huge fan of the ultrasound. It looked a bit like Lennox Louis, taking several jabs, two uppercuts, even a low blow at the sounds coming from “outside water world.” Either that, or he/she has been plotting his/her escape and has been slowly trying to claw its way out of Kim’s belly button. While that would probably be intensely painful for Kim, I can’t help wondering what it might look like.

Our window into the womb was all too fleeting (free ultrasounds genuinely are) and soon they were wheeling the magical device back to the Cruise’s and we were ushered out the door, back to the front desk, with our sheet of paper still in hand. The lady in the front reluctantly took it this time, figuring someone probably should. I’m pretty sure I heard her file it in the shredder. We set up our next OBGYN appointment for January 3oth, and also booked our 19 week ultrasound with a professional sonographer. Should be interesting.

All in all, it was a good visit to the doctor. And now we only have a week or two until the next appointment, when we’ll get a really good look at Chi-Baba. It should be interesting…