Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a dog.
I'm thinking maybe something of the medium height variety, with some poodle or collie in them (those breeds are smart and don't shed the same way as regular dogs).
I always imagined when I was a grown up that I would have a boy dog and name him Quasar.
My husband and oldest daughter would rather have a cat. I guess that might make for an interesting menagerie.
One day.
(edit: I did not know would not post again here for about 3 years. in that time a lot changed. among other things we had another daughter, and a cat found us.)
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Monday, November 24, 2008
The most valuable thing my mother taught me was to read. You'll always get smarter if you keep reading. Something else my mother taught me was that you should never wear make up to visit the doctor, because they might not realize how sick you really are if you look too pretty.
Equipped with this knowledge I entered the adult world of diagnosis and MD's (I think) a person reasonably well versed about her own body and health and, trying not to be too be too bossy about self diagnosis, a self awareness that has impressed most medical personnel. I think working in medical administration also helped develop this, as I often heard how frustrated doctors were by 'dumb people' who knew nothing about their own bodies, had little self awareness, and apparently, little knowledge about basic anatomy. When they had a patient who was even a little bit educated about what was going on with their own body, they rejoiced.
So you can imagine I was quite delighted to be able to (with what I would call a pretty basic understanding of the reproductive system) inform my doctor of the date of conception of each of my children. In every instance an ultrasound confirmed that date exactly, which he said he found very helpful. In fact, at the first appointment with my second child, he didn't even ask me the date of my LMP, he went entirely off my conception date to determine a due date (which is good because the other calculation would have been off by two weeks).
Imagine my surprise when, after having to go into the office today at 19 wks 4 days pregnant to have a check because of some abnormalities, a new doctor tells me that I am 20 weeks and 1 day pregnant.
I recheck the dates and ask her, I'm pretty sure I'm only 19 weeks 4 days, do you know if my due date was changed?
She checks the baby first. "Growth is right on track for 20 weeks 1 day, she's measuring 19 weeks, 4 days!"
I am puzzled by this information. By what she has just said, the baby is behind. By my caculations and the measurement she gave, the baby is right on track with her age being 19 weeks 4 days!
As I'm given 20 minutes of peace during a non-stress test, I review my first meeting with the midwife. As per my other visits, the assistant wants to figure out my due date using the date of my LMP. I reluctantly give it to her, and ask her to please calculate using my other date, as my cycle was not a typical 28-day cycle. She won't. Based on that (incorrect) date, she gives me a due date of April 12th. According to my dates I should be due April 17th. (But wait, you say, that's only 5 days different! So what? Bear with me friend...)
Enter the midwife, a jolly, down-to-earth woman who is bright and cheerful. "What was your LMP?"
I give her the date, but say, "My cycle was long that time, and I didn't ovulate until xdate. I know conception was on ydate."
"Oh good!" she says, apparently delighted by this information, "You know the date of conception! Well that would give you a due date of April 17th!"
She makes a note in my chart. She does the ultrasound. The baby is measuring correctly to the date. Turning to me, she smiles. "You were right, Mama!"
Back in the waiting room today, as I make inane observations about the room (the fluff that has gathered on one corner of the ceiling tile maybe be an over exuberance of ceiling insulation... the net at the top of the curtain was attached to the fabric using a serger - interesting choice) I jump as the new doctor sticks her head in the door.
"Yeah, your LMP was zdate, so your due date is April 12th. That makes you 20 weeks, 1 day."
Dumbly, I say, "But my cycle was long that month, we didn't conceive the baby until after I ovulated, and by the conception date they told me I was due April 17th."
She smiles with no emotion. "We don't use those dates. We always go by LMP. Your due date is April 12th." And then she is gone.
I want my regular doctor back. I want the midwife. I want anyone who will realize that come April 12th, and I'm warned about the dangers of being overdue, big babies, inhalation of meconium, and the general disasters that await you if you pass the magical date, that this baby is awaiting her own time to enter the world, and I don't have to be the slightest bit worried until sometime after the 17th. I wonder if, because it's relatively easy to frighten a heavily pregnant woman about the safety of her unborn child, I will feel pressure to have an induction, which may then (according to well documented research) lead to all kinds of other interventions if indeed she is not ready to be in the world. I wonder if my fate has changed at all because a doctor who doesn't believe in using conception dates (that have been verified multiple times by early ultrasound), has given me an incorrect due date.
I lie there, wondering, wishing there was an alternative we could afford, and anyone who even cares. I think about my daughter, flexing and twisting in my belly, so wanted and loved already and blissfully unaware of all that lies ahead of her.
It seems she is staying put for now. It was infection that caused me to fear her early arrival, something easily treatable because I paid attention to my body, was reasonably well informed and sought help from someone more educated than myself. There is a lot of relief in that.
But I should have worn make-up. At least then I could feel dumb AND pretty.
Equipped with this knowledge I entered the adult world of diagnosis and MD's (I think) a person reasonably well versed about her own body and health and, trying not to be too be too bossy about self diagnosis, a self awareness that has impressed most medical personnel. I think working in medical administration also helped develop this, as I often heard how frustrated doctors were by 'dumb people' who knew nothing about their own bodies, had little self awareness, and apparently, little knowledge about basic anatomy. When they had a patient who was even a little bit educated about what was going on with their own body, they rejoiced.
So you can imagine I was quite delighted to be able to (with what I would call a pretty basic understanding of the reproductive system) inform my doctor of the date of conception of each of my children. In every instance an ultrasound confirmed that date exactly, which he said he found very helpful. In fact, at the first appointment with my second child, he didn't even ask me the date of my LMP, he went entirely off my conception date to determine a due date (which is good because the other calculation would have been off by two weeks).
Imagine my surprise when, after having to go into the office today at 19 wks 4 days pregnant to have a check because of some abnormalities, a new doctor tells me that I am 20 weeks and 1 day pregnant.
I recheck the dates and ask her, I'm pretty sure I'm only 19 weeks 4 days, do you know if my due date was changed?
She checks the baby first. "Growth is right on track for 20 weeks 1 day, she's measuring 19 weeks, 4 days!"
I am puzzled by this information. By what she has just said, the baby is behind. By my caculations and the measurement she gave, the baby is right on track with her age being 19 weeks 4 days!
As I'm given 20 minutes of peace during a non-stress test, I review my first meeting with the midwife. As per my other visits, the assistant wants to figure out my due date using the date of my LMP. I reluctantly give it to her, and ask her to please calculate using my other date, as my cycle was not a typical 28-day cycle. She won't. Based on that (incorrect) date, she gives me a due date of April 12th. According to my dates I should be due April 17th. (But wait, you say, that's only 5 days different! So what? Bear with me friend...)
Enter the midwife, a jolly, down-to-earth woman who is bright and cheerful. "What was your LMP?"
I give her the date, but say, "My cycle was long that time, and I didn't ovulate until xdate. I know conception was on ydate."
"Oh good!" she says, apparently delighted by this information, "You know the date of conception! Well that would give you a due date of April 17th!"
She makes a note in my chart. She does the ultrasound. The baby is measuring correctly to the date. Turning to me, she smiles. "You were right, Mama!"
Back in the waiting room today, as I make inane observations about the room (the fluff that has gathered on one corner of the ceiling tile maybe be an over exuberance of ceiling insulation... the net at the top of the curtain was attached to the fabric using a serger - interesting choice) I jump as the new doctor sticks her head in the door.
"Yeah, your LMP was zdate, so your due date is April 12th. That makes you 20 weeks, 1 day."
Dumbly, I say, "But my cycle was long that month, we didn't conceive the baby until after I ovulated, and by the conception date they told me I was due April 17th."
She smiles with no emotion. "We don't use those dates. We always go by LMP. Your due date is April 12th." And then she is gone.
I want my regular doctor back. I want the midwife. I want anyone who will realize that come April 12th, and I'm warned about the dangers of being overdue, big babies, inhalation of meconium, and the general disasters that await you if you pass the magical date, that this baby is awaiting her own time to enter the world, and I don't have to be the slightest bit worried until sometime after the 17th. I wonder if, because it's relatively easy to frighten a heavily pregnant woman about the safety of her unborn child, I will feel pressure to have an induction, which may then (according to well documented research) lead to all kinds of other interventions if indeed she is not ready to be in the world. I wonder if my fate has changed at all because a doctor who doesn't believe in using conception dates (that have been verified multiple times by early ultrasound), has given me an incorrect due date.
I lie there, wondering, wishing there was an alternative we could afford, and anyone who even cares. I think about my daughter, flexing and twisting in my belly, so wanted and loved already and blissfully unaware of all that lies ahead of her.
It seems she is staying put for now. It was infection that caused me to fear her early arrival, something easily treatable because I paid attention to my body, was reasonably well informed and sought help from someone more educated than myself. There is a lot of relief in that.
But I should have worn make-up. At least then I could feel dumb AND pretty.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
It was a strawberry kind of day...
Strawberries, sourdough baguette with homemade strawberry jam,
"pink milk"
"pink milk"
Juicy: lips, berries and baby fingers
Monday, June 23, 2008
I like this quote:
"Before I was married I had six theories about raising children.
Now I have six children and no theories."
~ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Now I have six children and no theories."
~ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Pipe Dreams
My dad took up cycling a few years back, and has done some long treks. Two years ago he and a friend from France who is also an avid cyclist, cycled from Melbourne to Darwin, through the center of Australia...
View Larger Map
Plus some sideline trips... It's a long way, like 2500 miles.
So I've had this idea that I'd get my butt into shape (literally) and start cycling and do a trip with him. Inspired by the 1930's and 40's John Wayne westerns that I grew up watching, I thought it would be fun to cycle through this part of the U.S.
These are some options for adventures I thought we could do...
This would start at the northern rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, go up through Zion and several other National Parks including Arches, down through Bluff to the Monument Valley National Park, Lake Powell and down to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon.
View Larger Map
or maybe:
From the most eastern point of Canada, through Maine to Boston, across to Niagra Falls, and down through the Pennsylvania Dutch Country and up to finish in New York.
View Larger Map
What do you reckon?
View Larger Map
Plus some sideline trips... It's a long way, like 2500 miles.
So I've had this idea that I'd get my butt into shape (literally) and start cycling and do a trip with him. Inspired by the 1930's and 40's John Wayne westerns that I grew up watching, I thought it would be fun to cycle through this part of the U.S.
These are some options for adventures I thought we could do...
This would start at the northern rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, go up through Zion and several other National Parks including Arches, down through Bluff to the Monument Valley National Park, Lake Powell and down to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon.
View Larger Map
or maybe:
From the most eastern point of Canada, through Maine to Boston, across to Niagra Falls, and down through the Pennsylvania Dutch Country and up to finish in New York.
View Larger Map
What do you reckon?
Friday, January 11, 2008
A Most Excellent Adventure - Prologue
I'm going to write you all about Australia. It seems only fair I should share everything about where I have been. I'm working right now on the first installment. Aren't you excited? I am.
So tonight... tonight I was calm, which was unusual after the last few days have been... I felt so wrung out. And then sometime, I think after I got the girls up... I just relaxed.
There was laundry to do, so I sat on the washer and watched the girls dance around the garage to the midi-like sounds of a broken baby bouncer. I made bubble and squeak for dinner, and I thought, as Sufjan played in the background, that it is very, very satisfying when two toddlers ask for seconds and then thirds. Although I realized after the third helping all Immi wanted to do was eat dollops of sour cream. Hmmm.... nope, still satisfying.
Curious George was for dessert - the movie, not the tv show. The girls went to bed easily, with lots of tickles and kisses. I thought about wanting more... children and kisses. I started writing, Immi woke again and I wondered if it would be another peaceful night shattered by hysteria, but it wasn't. I sat and rocked her in the dark, wondering how many times I'll get to do that before she's too big.
And now I've been watching movies. "Evening" and a Sundance film festival one that I can't remember the name of but that I like. I'll have to wait until it ends and let you know, so...
So tonight... tonight I was calm, which was unusual after the last few days have been... I felt so wrung out. And then sometime, I think after I got the girls up... I just relaxed.
There was laundry to do, so I sat on the washer and watched the girls dance around the garage to the midi-like sounds of a broken baby bouncer. I made bubble and squeak for dinner, and I thought, as Sufjan played in the background, that it is very, very satisfying when two toddlers ask for seconds and then thirds. Although I realized after the third helping all Immi wanted to do was eat dollops of sour cream. Hmmm.... nope, still satisfying.
Curious George was for dessert - the movie, not the tv show. The girls went to bed easily, with lots of tickles and kisses. I thought about wanting more... children and kisses. I started writing, Immi woke again and I wondered if it would be another peaceful night shattered by hysteria, but it wasn't. I sat and rocked her in the dark, wondering how many times I'll get to do that before she's too big.
And now I've been watching movies. "Evening" and a Sundance film festival one that I can't remember the name of but that I like. I'll have to wait until it ends and let you know, so...
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Looking Back, Looking Forward
In reference to what it was like when I first moved to America, I was recently asked, "What were some things that took getting used to?"
I've been pondering this. There are the obvious things:
+ you drive on the other side of the road
+ your light switches go the opposite way off/on
+ you all have accents (yes all of you)
+ the money is different, and in different denominations
+ your slang is different
etc.
Then there are the more subtle ones:
+ social politeness nuances that offend people before you know they exist
+ finding that most everything at the grocery store has the same name but random small items you need but can't find for months don't, until by accident you discover they've been sitting under your nose all that time disguised as something else
+ realizing that for some reason my accent and the various other accents have trouble understanding each other, even though we know we're all speaking English. it's frustrating for them as much as for me, because they're expecting I'm American
+ random car styles, house styles that have the same name look completely different
+ going into a situation that seems familiar, but finding out part way through a process or tiny aspect is different, throwing you off and making you feel small, stupid and foolish, because it is inevitably followed by an annoyed look, a sarcastic comment, or some other belittling gesture that lets you know exactly how dumb you are for being in your mid-twenties and apparently unaware of a very adult thing
+ having your lack of friends and family, job, church and independence reveal every possible insecurity you have, often to people who don't care about you, as you have to slowly over many years piece back together all the parts of your life thrown open wide by marriage, moving and subsequent grief and loneliness
+ being afraid to go outside because stepping outside your door will only show you again how unfamiliar it all is.
+ being brave enough to step out your door, only to find yourself rejected
+ not being able to recognize yourself
+ constantly feeling like for every step forward, you take two steps back
+ having questions on why people do things the way they do, without being able to find reasonable answers
+ making all new friends, sometimes with people you HAD to befriend
+ going without platonic hugs
I'm sure there are more, but my brain is wrecked.
Oh, and I promise this is not a pity party - and to that end I'm considering disabling comments on this one because I don't want people compelled out of pity or compassion to write something in return. Ok, I've thought about it, and I won't disable them. Just please don't write me because you feel sorry for me ok? I'm just answering the question, as much for that person as for myself, because I am reaching or perhaps have reached something of a turning point, where I feel like I can say these things and realize they are a part of me - a significant part of me - but I'm getting over it. It's time to get over it.
Of course, I say that now and 2 or 3 months from now I'll probably hit some situation and think, "wow, I didn't think that would affect me" or "wow, I thought I was over that", and feel disappointed in myself.**
On a brighter note -
Things I am looking forward to about going back:
+ driving on the right side of the road
+ seeing my family
+ seeing my friends
+ sausages in bread, tasty cheese, instant coffee and biscuits, peter's ice cream, custard in a carton.
+ fish and chips, sausage rolls, chico rolls and dim sims
+ familiar grocery stores
+ my kids staying in the house I grew up in, taking them to places dear to my younger heart
+ funky other little stores that I can't get here
+ having my rings re-dipped in the right carat gold
+ wandering downtown and being a grown up again
+ the Wok-on-Inn
+ passionfruit gelati
+ Guruva
and last but not least,
+ seeing my little sister get married
**It didn't take 2-3 months, it happened tonight.
I've been pondering this. There are the obvious things:
+ you drive on the other side of the road
+ your light switches go the opposite way off/on
+ you all have accents (yes all of you)
+ the money is different, and in different denominations
+ your slang is different
etc.
Then there are the more subtle ones:
+ social politeness nuances that offend people before you know they exist
+ finding that most everything at the grocery store has the same name but random small items you need but can't find for months don't, until by accident you discover they've been sitting under your nose all that time disguised as something else
+ realizing that for some reason my accent and the various other accents have trouble understanding each other, even though we know we're all speaking English. it's frustrating for them as much as for me, because they're expecting I'm American
+ random car styles, house styles that have the same name look completely different
+ going into a situation that seems familiar, but finding out part way through a process or tiny aspect is different, throwing you off and making you feel small, stupid and foolish, because it is inevitably followed by an annoyed look, a sarcastic comment, or some other belittling gesture that lets you know exactly how dumb you are for being in your mid-twenties and apparently unaware of a very adult thing
+ having your lack of friends and family, job, church and independence reveal every possible insecurity you have, often to people who don't care about you, as you have to slowly over many years piece back together all the parts of your life thrown open wide by marriage, moving and subsequent grief and loneliness
+ being afraid to go outside because stepping outside your door will only show you again how unfamiliar it all is.
+ being brave enough to step out your door, only to find yourself rejected
+ not being able to recognize yourself
+ constantly feeling like for every step forward, you take two steps back
+ having questions on why people do things the way they do, without being able to find reasonable answers
+ making all new friends, sometimes with people you HAD to befriend
+ going without platonic hugs
I'm sure there are more, but my brain is wrecked.
Oh, and I promise this is not a pity party - and to that end I'm considering disabling comments on this one because I don't want people compelled out of pity or compassion to write something in return. Ok, I've thought about it, and I won't disable them. Just please don't write me because you feel sorry for me ok? I'm just answering the question, as much for that person as for myself, because I am reaching or perhaps have reached something of a turning point, where I feel like I can say these things and realize they are a part of me - a significant part of me - but I'm getting over it. It's time to get over it.
Of course, I say that now and 2 or 3 months from now I'll probably hit some situation and think, "wow, I didn't think that would affect me" or "wow, I thought I was over that", and feel disappointed in myself.**
On a brighter note -
Things I am looking forward to about going back:
+ driving on the right side of the road
+ seeing my family
+ seeing my friends
+ sausages in bread, tasty cheese, instant coffee and biscuits, peter's ice cream, custard in a carton.
+ fish and chips, sausage rolls, chico rolls and dim sims
+ familiar grocery stores
+ my kids staying in the house I grew up in, taking them to places dear to my younger heart
+ funky other little stores that I can't get here
+ having my rings re-dipped in the right carat gold
+ wandering downtown and being a grown up again
+ the Wok-on-Inn
+ passionfruit gelati
+ Guruva
and last but not least,
+ seeing my little sister get married
**It didn't take 2-3 months, it happened tonight.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
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