dead baby jokes

blogging is hard

2008-07-03T21:19:00.001-04:00

You have to come up with ideas. And translate them into words. And add italics.

So why not consider a fabulous new header designed exclusively for you by the lovely and talented Calliope? Because sometimes just sitting there and looking pretty is all you really need to do.

in search of

2008-07-02T13:26:00.000-04:00

For a bunch of unbloggable reasons, Kyrie has decided that she wants to switch to a new ob and has delegated the task of looking for one to me. My knee-jerk reaction would be to go with the satellite office of one of the big downtown teaching hospitals, but there are two fairly insurmountable problems.

First, I'm not very fond of one of the doctors who practices there,* mostly because of a comment he once made to me that was, in its own special way, a minor classic of over-the-top insensitivity. Second, and more importantly, when Kyrie called to set up an appointment, she was informed that they had a policy of not accepting surrogates as patients. I'm sure that the person who told her that was misinformed, but, understandably, Kyrie was very upset and has no interest in going there.

For obvious reasons, I don't want to ask friends or colleagues for recommendations. So this is where your collective wisdom and expertise comes in. How (besides random google searches) should I go about finding a practice? What should I be looking for? What questions should I ask?

*I don't think there would be any way to avoid this particular doctor since my understanding is that you're not assigned to a specific doctor within the practice, but see whichever one happens to be available at the time of your appointment.

in perspective

2008-07-02T08:43:00.009-04:00

The July 6 x 6 is up at Glow in the Woods. Take a look at our answers to this month's questions and add your own -- either in the comments or on your own blog.

dreaming of pop tarts

2008-07-01T19:03:00.002-04:00

I'm back home, sleepy, but fine. They did some biopsies and the results come back in ten days or so. But, really, I'm not worried at all.

In fact, I'm lying here puzzling over one of those phrases that has always, well, puzzled me. Namely, comfort food. There are plenty of foods that I really like (though, to be fair about it, more that I really, really hate). There have been many times when I've gone on food strikes, where I crave and eat only a very limited variety of foods. For example, a couple of years back, I had to have two frosted brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts for breakfast every single morning. Sometimes I was so eager to eat them that I burnt my fingers pulling them out of the toaster. But once that phase ended -- as inexplicably as it began -- I stopped eating pop tarts altogether.

But, comfort foods. Is this just one of those phrases that doesn't mean anything except that you enjoy and seek out certain foods? Or are there foods that actually have an emotional charge, that soothe you, that bring comfort? And what are they?

replay

2008-06-30T20:17:00.003-04:00

While it certainly wasn't bad news, it looks like it was probably good news for someone other than me. The first thing I remember hearing when I drifted back into consciousness was the nurse telling me that I've been signed up for another trip to the hospital tomorrow morning.

silver lining

2008-06-30T07:07:00.002-04:00

I'm not really worried about the surgery. Just, you know, the usual what-unforeseen-and-calamitous-thing-is-going-happen-next feelings knawing at the back of my brain.

So I'm focusing on this cheerful comment by one of the members of my household: Look at it this way. However it turns out, it'll be good news for someone.

long way round

2008-06-27T11:16:00.004-04:00

Thanks so much for sharing your good news. Though I enjoy the rich chocolaty goodness of schadenfreude* as much as the next blogger, I can (believe it or not} occasionally find happiness in others' good news. Anyway, here's mine.

There was another ultrasound this morning and everything looks fine; everything looks great; everything looks perfect. Though when I say "looks," what I mean is that's what the doctor said, because I kept my hand over my eyes the entire time.

I know this is good news. Really, I do. But what I can't help thinking is: at this point last time, everything looked perfect too.

*Speaking of which, check out this yummy-looking recipe for Schadenfreude Pie. As they say: "Joy at the misfortune of others -- and pie. Truly the best of all possible worlds."

feeling sorry for myself

2008-06-26T09:32:00.000-04:00

Despite appearances to the contrary, I'm not really all that fond of trolling the internets* for sympathy. But I'm going to do it anyway. It's probably nothing. I'm sure I'm going to be fine. But on Monday, I'm going in for some exploratory surgery. Not fun at all. But I really don't want to talk or even think about it.

Cheer me up by telling me something good -- no matter how small -- that's happened to you lately.

*I originally wrote: internest, which strikes me as one of those felicitous typos, kinda like heartbraking or free rain.

Edited to add: I can't tell you how much I appreciate any comments you'd like to leave here. But, though I usually love emails, please, please, please, DO NOT email me with questions or even the most anodyne of comments about this. I mean it.

riding the leopard

2008-06-25T09:33:00.000-04:00

In the iconography of the seven deadly sins, wrath was sometimes represented by a leopard, bear, or wild boar.* I have a post up at Glow in the Woods with some thoughts and questions about anger and loss.

*Although, more recently, anger, along with the other six, has been depicted in the form of a gummy bear.

if you have to ask how much it costs . . .

2008-06-23T19:41:00.005-04:00

Scrolling down through the titles of the emails in my junk mailbox, I noticed this one: You will now know the true cost of love. I'm sure it's just another offer to sell me some of those little blue pills, but it stopped me in my tracks.

Everything has its price -- even if that price can't be expressed in dollars, euros or quatloos. What do you think is the true cost of love?

edited to add: Some of the comments have mentioned the risk of heartbreak as a cost of love. Which certainly makes sense, but (though it wasn't clear) what I was really thinking about was the cost of love without considering the risk of losing it, the cost of love itself. There's a lot out there about the value of love, the joys it brings, its inestimable worth. But what do we lose when we love?

im in ur blog deconstructin ur narrativz

2008-06-21T19:15:00.001-04:00

cross my palm with silver

2008-06-20T20:10:00.001-04:00

Stacked boxes bring misfortune. Or so they say.

compensation

2008-06-19T12:03:00.002-04:00

I'm pretty sure that my luggage is gone for good and I'm thinking regretfully of all the photos I've lost.

There were the close-ups of the tray of Eiffel Tower keychains, taken at one of the souvenir stalls along the Left Bank, while the stall's proprietor (despite the fact that I'd already purchased several more keychains than were strictly necessary) made uncomplimentary remarks about American tourists in a muttered French that I pretended not to understand.

There was the series of shots, taken from as many angles as I could manage before the battery ran out, of the stone snakes curling from the stone brows of the Medusas standing braced against the atrium's adamantine light.

There was the not-very-successful attempt to capture a late medieval painting of St. Marguerite being devoured by a dragon that looked less like the symbolic representation of the Forces of Darkness and more like a greenish weasel with adorably googly eyes.

But the good thing is that it looks like my insurance is going to pay to replace the laptop. So, O Internets, which laptop -- make, model, and size -- would you recommend?

utility theory

2008-06-17T13:04:00.001-04:00

A bunch of people have asked why I didn’t take home any ultrasound pictures. The answer’s simple. Costs and benefits, people, costs and benefits.

What’s the upside of getting ultrasound pictures? Well, I guess the main benefit is that I’d, uh, have ultrasound pictures. But the downside is enormous. Not only would the pictures themselves remind me of Bad Things from the past, but, if things go wrong this time, I’ll have to spend effort and energy getting rid of the photos at a time when I really won’t need anything else to worry about. Plus, the pictures will serve as a painful reminder of how naive and stupid I was to ever hope that things would go the way I wanted them to.

For the same reason, I’m not planning to put up a ticker or to buy things in advance or to tell my friends or family. If I act like things will work out and, in fact, things do work out I haven’t really gained much of anything. But if I act like things are going to work out and then they don’t, it’s going to hurt even more than it would have otherwise. The more you’ve invested in something, the worse you’re going to feel when it breaks into a million pieces.

Now, if I wanted to be completely logical about this, I’d make an attempt to factor in the relative probabilities of good and bad outcomes. But that’s hard to do. Not only is my perception of the odds skewed, but there’s the complicating issue of loss aversion. For not-wholly-understood reasons, the amount of pain caused by a given loss is almost always going to vastly exceed the amount of pleasure caused by an equivalent gain. And like a lot of things in this world, though it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, that’s just the way it is.

What would you do? How do you balance these kinds of costs and benefits?

all by myself

2008-06-16T07:46:00.010-04:00

Except for those weeks back in April, since January, I've been here and everyone else has been there. Though I can't remember ever spending this much time living by myself, I have to say that I like it. I like it a lot. The house is always clean and always quiet and if, like yesterday, I bake a raspberry crumble, I can leave it to cool on the counter without worrying about someone else taking my share.

I grew up in houses filled with siblings and relatives and friends and it seems like an enormous luxury to walk out the door and not to have to tell anyone where I'm going or when I'm coming back. I go to the grocery store and buy only the things that I want to eat. I wake up early and the only sound is the rain on the garden.

"But don't you get lonely?" someone asked. I smiled and didn't answer. I don't think I've ever been lonely in my entire life. I'm not even sure I'd know what it felt like.

so far

2008-06-13T14:00:00.002-04:00

It's almost lunchtime and I'm heading north. The highway is choked with cars and I begin to worry about the time, but, after five or six miles, I see the blue lights and the tow truck. The traffic slows even more and I don't try to stop myself from staring at the side of the road. One car seems untouched, but the other is blackened and bent, the doors ajar and the hood folded at an unpleasant angle.

I drive by Target, Staples, and, finally, just before Center Street, pull into the parking lot of the fake-brick office building. The waiting room walls are decorated with Impressionist-style prints depicting faintly European scenes -- cafe tables shaded by umbrellas, stone steps leading to the sea. Behind the desk, the office staff are answering phones. I hear one of them say, "You need to take her to the emergency room right away" Someone's cellphone ring and the ringtone is the Goo Goo Dolls' Better Days.

The office door opens. It's Kyrie with Caden and another boy, equally small, equally blond. "This is Caden's friend, Declan," says Kyrie.

"Hi, Declan," I say, "Do you like dinosaurs too?" Declan is holding a plastic T-Rex, which he lets me look at while he transfers his juice box to the other hand.

We're ushered down the hallway ("Single file, everyone!," says Kyrie) to the small, dark ultrsound room. "How are you feeling?" the tech asks Kyrie as she picks up the monitor.

There's a pause, while I dig my nails into my palms. "Look!" Caden says to Declan, "There's the baby!" then, "Is that the baby, Mama?"

"That's right," says Kyrie, "Remember how I told you that the baby lives in a special place in Mama's tummy?" But Caden has already lost interest. "I think we should be starting to get a dog, Mama."

The heartbeat is right on target. The size is too, and maybe even a couple of days ahead. The tech prints out a few pictures and Kyrie puts them in her bag.

"Can we go to the pool, Mama?" asks Caden, as we walk out, "Can we go to the museum?"

We all ride the elevator together to the lobby. "Bye, Caden. Bye, Declan. Bye Kyrie." I wave and open the door of my car. "Wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend," says the radio as I wait for the light to change.

A right, then a left just after the strip mall brings me back to the highway. I'm heading south and, in the breakdown lane, someone is riding a motorcycle without a helmet. I'm going exactly the speed limit, but I'm still the slowest car on the road.

big sigh of relief

2008-06-12T19:13:00.005-04:00

I got my test results and it looks like I'm actually going to be okay. I feel so much better. (and so dumb for ever mentioning it in the first place)

Moving right along.

Look! Over there! Frowny Marshmallows! Because, let's face it, you'd be frowny too if someone skewered you with a stick and toasted you over a fire.

edited to fix the broken link.

in which i am intentionally vague

2008-06-11T18:48:00.006-04:00

Don't ask for details.* Just say "Poor little Niobe."

And be glad you're not me.

*But I promise it has nothing to do with Kyrie or ultrasounds or grief or preeclampsia or, in fact, any of the bad things previously mentioned on this blog.

dandelion days

2008-06-11T08:34:00.010-04:00

I'm spectacularly bad at memes, but Janistan tagged me for one that seems to involve questions I can actually answer. Unlike, say, the one where I was supposed to pick six hot celebrities. As anyone who knows me can attest, I am so culturally clueless that I would have a hard time identifying six celebrities of any variety or temperature. But anyway.

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?

Crying. Thinking sad thoughts. Writing sad, sad lyrics for sad, sad songs. If nothing else, I'm consistent,

2. What 5 things are on your to-do list for today?

Read the [work-related materials].
Find a date to schedule [work-related meeting].
Attend the [work-related event].
Get [work-related person's] views on [work-related topic].
Edit the next iteration of [work-related document].

3. List some snacks you enjoy.

This is hard, because I'm generally too lazy to procure snacks for myself. Um, things that I sometimes eat/drink between meals include:

miso soup (it comes in tasty little packets.* Just add hot water!)
cheez-its (though, alas, I gave them up as of last week)
popsicles
lattes

*The packets themselves aren't tasty. But you know what I mean.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?

Toss it. Because I'm sure it's counterfeit.

5. List the places you have lived.

East Coast, USA (various cities)
West Coast, USA
Southern France

The list is deceptive because, although I've spent a few years living elsewhere, I've lived the majority of my life in the same urban-ish, high-density, supremely self-satisfied town.

6. List the jobs you have had.

I could tell you, but . . . well, you know.

Okay. That wasn't so bad. Your turn.

coming to terms

2008-06-10T19:03:00.011-04:00

Blogging can sometimes seem a little like building castles in the sand. So much effort and care lavished on something so ephemeral. Which is why it's nice to see a blogger get at least a little of the recognition she deserves. Be sure to take a look at the article in today's New York Times, which focuses on Pamela Jeanne's journey -- her decision to stop fertility treatments and to live life without children.

Then click over to her blog Coming 2 Terms and read her story in own words, by turns hilariously funny, bitingly sarcastic and achingly sad, but always dazzling in their insight and honesty.

just as bad as i thought

2008-06-09T12:17:00.002-04:00

The first regular doctor's appointment was today. It took a little while for the doctor to understand who the various players were, but, eventually, we got it all sorted out.

"It might be too early," said the doctor as she picked up the doppler, "but let's see if we can hear the baby's heartbeat." She searched for it for a few very long minutes, then gave up, commenting cheerfully in an accent I couldn't quite place, "We'll be able to hear it at the next appointment for sure." She wasn't worried at all.

But I am.

not as bad as i thought

2008-06-09T08:02:00.007-04:00

In fact, it was fine. Really. I give a large part of the credit to Beck's deliciously distracting cinnamon rolls, spirals of sweet dough and cinnamon-butter, drizzled with the vanilla icing that I substituted for the cream cheese frosting in the recipe.

We talked about lots of things and I managed to run though most of the topics you suggested. No-one mentioned Emma, my step-brother's daughter, or Emily, my other stepbrother's daughter, though their toys and tiny flowered clothes were scattered throughout the house. Emma is exactly the age the twins would have been. Emily is six months younger and my stepbrother's wife announced the pregnancy three weeks after the twins died.

I tried not to think about the fact that my stepbrother has Emma and my other stepbrother has Emily and I have . . . well, I have my fingers crossed that I'm not heading for another disaster. Instead, I concentrated on wondering what in the world my stepbrothers were thinking. Emma and Emily already have the same last name. Why would their parents choose almost identical first names?*

But maybe it's just me. Theoretically, would you give your child the same name or practically the same name as a cousin?

*And, no, neither Emma nor Emily is a family name.

edited to add: Just so it's clear (which it evidently wasn't before) -- I have a policy of not using anyone's real name on this blog. Emma and Emily are pseudonyms. But the girls' actual names are just as similar to each other. If not more so.

the road that has no turning

2008-06-06T11:04:00.007-04:00

I have a new post up over at Glow in the Woods. Take a look if you like.

forewarned is forearmed

2008-06-05T10:06:00.000-04:00

Asbestos boots? Check. Military spec pith helmet? Check. Class 2 rubber insulator gloves? Check.

This weekend, I'm going to visit my mother. It'll be the first time I've seen her since last summer's traumatic (though unblogged) Fourth of July fiasco. My mother has many good points. She's charming, brilliant, and funny. She was a star student and a star athlete at a time when it wasn't fashionable for a girl to be either. She has a red kayak and a backyard full of daylilies. But -- for those of you might be tempted to suggest that I attempt a heart-to-heart about our, um, differences -- there are two sentences that I've never heard and never expect to hear from my mother. One is "I was wrong." The other is "I'm sorry."

In preparation for my visit, I've been trying to generate a list of conversational topics that are unlikely to result in unpleasantnesses. So far, I've come up with: the diplomatic contretemps between the Democratic Republic of the Congo* and Belgium, the potential impact of the Lakers' off-season addition of Derek Fisher and . . . the weather.

Other suggestions for innocuous stuff to talk about?

*Not to be confused with the neighboring Republic of the Congo.

the talking cure

2008-06-03T15:14:00.006-04:00

The therapist always wants to hear about my dreams. "So, I'm wondering," he says, drawing out the word to an inordinate, hissing length, "whether you've had any dreams lately." I chance a look at the clock on the bookshelf and tell him about the dream where I was a spy driving a minivan down the Trans-Siberian highway or the one where I was buying ill-fitting sundresses at an open-air flea market or the one where I was committing perjury in front of a congressional subcommittee on energy policy.

The therapist listens and offers an interpretation, which, to my ears, nearly always rings false. I describe a dream about finding a suitcase full of cocaine and he says, "It sounds like you'd like to escape from reality." I describe a dream about my niece's birthday party and he says "It sounds like you feel that Mattea is something to celebrate."

Now, I realize that the blame for my inability to accomplish anything useful during therapy rests squarely on my own shoulders. When a therapist asks what my goals are, I say that I have no idea. When a therapist tries to establish a friendly relationship with me, I figuratively slap away the outstretched hand. "Do you think we have a good rapport?" asked one therapist but, oddly enough, didn't seem very happy when I responded "Not especially."

I'm self-aware enough to see that repeatedly failing at therapy represents a safe way of expressing my hostility towards my mother, the psychiatrist. But knowing that isn't the same as stopping myself from doing it. Moreover, I've found that my attempts at therapy tend to rapidly degenerate into something very much like repeto-therapy -- a technique that I seem to remember being featured long, long ago in The Journal of Irreproducible Results. As I recall, it went something like this:

Patient: Look, I don't know what to do. I'm having a lot of trouble concentrating. I'm not sleeping well. I feel just so incredibly depressed and like there's absolutely no hope for me.

Psychiatrist: It sounds like you feel hopeless.

Patient: You got that right. So, do you think it would be a good idea for me to start taking some kind of medication?

Psychiatrist: It sounds like you're wondering whether it would be a good idea for you to start taking some kind of medication.

Patient: Exactly. So, what do you think?

Psychiatrist: It sounds like you're asking me to tell you what I think.

Patient: That doesn't answer my question at all. Why are you repeating everything I say?

Psychiatrist: It sounds like you believe that I'm repeating everything you say.

Patient: What the f*ck is going on here?

Psychiatrist: You sound confused.

What's your experience been? Have you tried therapy or avoided it? Have you found it to be a valuable venue for personal exploration and growth or a colossal waste of time and money? And what do you think my dreams mean?

edited to tidy up a few grammatical errors/typos that were driving me stark raving mad.