The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

I went in for my pelvic ultrasound this morning at 7:30 am, and by the time I left at 9am, I was 92% certain I was dying. The ultrasound tech kept coming back to my right ovary, and even asked another tech to come in and help her get a better picture of it, all the while saying “Hmmm. Maybe if I can get a better angle. Hmmm.” I just looked at the ceiling, counting tiles, wishing they had a “Hang in there!” poster. The ultrasound took forever, which was murder on my inflated bladder, but eventually they seemed satisfied, and let me put my clothes back on. They told me that it would be Monday at the earliest for my doctor to contact me with the results, which sounded rather cruel since they had just convinced me I was dying, but I  committed myself to being patient and zen until Monday.

This didn’t stop me from freaking out  at 8pm tonight when my GYN office’s  number came up on my phone. All I could think was “Shitshitshit I’m dying, why else would she call me night, shitshit”, but instead I squeaked out a “Hello?” The girls were screaming in the background, so I could barely hear her tell me “Ivory, everything is coming back normal, but I knew you would be worried, so I wanted to ca…” which is when I stopped listening because YAY I’M NOT DYING WOOOHOOOO but wait…  if everything is normal, why has it been nearly 5 months of cycles every 10-14 days? Why does my pelvic pain wake me up at night? Why is my *ahem* discharge so weird, and when am I ever going to be able to have sex again like a normal human being (7  ‘clean’ days a month just doesn’t cut it people)?

I asked her these questions, and she was honest in that she doesn’t know. She is willing to try and find the cause with me, but her first two suggestions – weaning Alice and going on birth control pills – are things that I am not ready for. As long as I know that my insides do not look like swiss cheese, and that nothing is falling out, I think I would rather give it more time. Maybe. Ask me again in, oh, 4 days when my next period is due.

So, it’s back to herbs and accupuncture and waiting. I feel a bit like a traitor, running away to modern medicine for a diagnosis, and then sulking back to natural medicine when they couldn’t fix me, but I know no one else sees it that way. My awesome acupuncturist will be excited to see me tomorrow and hear how the test are coming back, my midwife will be happy to hear my uterus isn’t shot, and I’m still going to take Gretchen up on some craniosacral. Because I’m not dying, ya’ll! Wahooo!

In an effort to keep my mind (and fingers) away from WebMd, I’ve been doing a lot of yoga lately. I flirt with yoga every few months, building up a practice, making it routine, and then I inevitably miss a day or two (sickness, traveling, exhaustion) and it takes me another few months to get back into the swing of it. It’s generally when my anxiety picks up that I go rushing back to my mat, since just breathing is seen as an accomplishment in yoga, and a quiet room  is key to quieting my mind.

For all the benefits I get from yoga,  it usually means waking up an hour before the girls if I want to get a real practice in, if I do not want “helpers”. Anything that requires me to get even less sleep than I am right now is a hard sell though, so unless I am feeling that jittery, unfocused buzz in my bones, I sleep in and tell myself I will start again tomorrow.

This week that is not an option, so rather than fight with the girls to be quiet so that I could be calm (because that is going to work out swell), I asked them to join me.

And lo, they are little gurus. Alice does a mean downward dog, but Ella was willing to try just about any pose that I presented to her. After a few minutes of mama lead yoga, I went online and found some short videos, and these pose cards. Ella took to them right away, and when she was done, asked earnestly if she could do yoga with me tomorrow.

I think I will need to buy another mat though, since I don’t think there is room for all three of us on there.

For lack of anything worthwhile to write about right now, I will just post a photo and shout “IT IS SPRING, HALLELUJAH”.

By my calculations, this means it will snow within 24 hours.

Ella must have read the blog yesterday, since today she took it upon herself to draw:

A happy gorilla

and a horse talking to an ant.

Also seen: a snake giving birth, and a superhero with a mask and a fire hat.

Alice loves to draw, just like her sister did at this age. Ella has dropped off in drawing in the last few months, preferring to scribble, or write letters, but Alice has taken up the mantle of family sketch artist. She is a righty, and holders her pencil perfectly, without my ever showing her how. Meghan took this picture of her yesterday (not screaming! Yay Alice!) and she looks so grown up.She really isn’t going to stay a baby is she?

And just for good measure: Ella at 18 months old, drawing.

Trivia:
The seven most dreaded words you can hear from a doctor when you are already pretty sure you are dying are “We are going to need more tests.”

Nothing earth shattering happened at my appointment today, but nothing that eased my mind happened either. I really like the office I ended up going to (Thanks for the recommendation M!) and realized when I was there that they also do general medicine, so I now have an alternative to crazy doctor. They were very thorough with my medical history, which rarely happens, and she didn’t look at me like I was crazy when I brought in my charts to show her my crazy cycles, or when I told her that neither of the girls were born in a hospital. I had a lot of anxiety about this, and it turned out to be a non-issue.

She agreed that nursing shouldn’t be causing my cycles to be on fast forward (nursing usually spaces out cycles) and was concerned when she was doing the exam, especially since my uterus is tender. I have to wait for the lab to call to set up an ultrasound and blood work, and then it’s just a waiting game to get all the results back and decide what to do. All in all, exactly what I knew would happen, but of course I hoped that they would wave their wands and say “You are HEALED!”

I should add here that my anxiety about this isn’t completely unfounded (as, uh, it is in most things). My grandmother battled “female cancer” and lost, and 6 years ago I was told that I had enough abnormal cervical cells that I went in and had a pap every month for a year, with periodic biopsies. And, sadly, 26 isn’t too young to take cervical cancer seriously. I am 92% certain that things are going to be fine, but hi, I worry. It’s what I do.

The good news from the day is that after a rough drop off, Alice did great at Meghan’s. For the last bit, after Seth had to leave and before I got there, Meghan had four tired girls, spanning from 3 months old  to three years old, in her care and they were all alive when I showed up. Super mama for sure.

I’m just feeling low and worried. Ella and I went on an emergency ice cream and underwear run this afternoon (Wall-E undies for her, chocolate ice cream for me) and now I am putting off bedtime by looking up symptoms on WebMd. Yeah, I’m definitely dying.

Man, I have the best friends. Gynecologist appointment tragedy averted, thanks to Meghan calling and insisting that I bring over the girls, even my screamy wailing Alice. And then I come back here and have multiple offers to help out, and *sigh* it makes me happy. Because taking care of my screaming child so that I can have mean cold duck lips shoved in my hooha,  is friendship.

If all else fails Meg, cut a hole in a paper bag and tell her she is a robot. Bee bop bee bop.

A little dolly for J, made at a breakneck speed yesterday, since my original plan for her birthday present fell through when a pattern I ordered didn’t arrive in time. It was my first experience with a Wee Wonderfuls pattern, and I was thrilled that it stood up to the hype. I may change a few things the next time I make one of these dolls (the eyes could be a smidge closer together, I wish I had not stuffed the arms quite so full,  and I think I will try to sew on the arms/legs before I stuff the body) but overall a easy, cute, and oh so lovable pattern. I think both of the girls will be getting these dolls for their birthdays (in 9 months, but you know I will put off making them until the week before).

Conundrum:

I have my long awaited gynecologist appointment on Monday, to address these issues. Rescheduling it isn’t much of an option, since it would put me back another 3 and a half weeks, and I feel like these issues needed to be dealt with yesterday.

Tom just remembered he has jury duty on Monday.

Pam, the only other person Alice will stay with without screaming hysterically for hours,  is out of town.

So, do I, a) Take both girls with me, since Ella can hopefully distract Alice long enough for me to put my feet up in the stirrups, b) drop Ella off at a friends and just take Alice and hope for a miracle, or c) clone myself?

Thing the first, because I promised my sister photos a week ago and then went and died for a few days:

Her (finally) finished quilt

(Also, her camera shy niece.)

I’ve been working on this thing for months, though it only took me a day or two to put the top together. The blocks were salvaged from an antique quilt, and scream “OMG CHANCE NEEDS TO OWN ME”. They all  had to be repaired in one way or another, and oxycleaned.  The white blocks are a really subtle white/white dot print, and the backing is a tiny purple microdot. It is a little over queen sized, which is too small to share with my 6’4″ brother-in-law, but when I called and asked her if she would rather have a ho-hum quilt that she could share with Brandon, or a perfect quilt that she didn’t have to share, she scoffed and said “Share? What?”

What really took me forever was finding the time to go quilt. I was working on this quilt on Labor Day, and between then and now, I have not been able to go quilt once. I could blame it on Tom’s schedule, the fact that Alice freeks any time I leave, or the fact that my mother-in-law’s shop has been booked up for months, but excuses shmasushes. It’s done now, so yay for patient sisters. Now she just needs to move into her new house, so that I can be sure it doesn’t get delivered to the old house the day after she leaves.

Thing the second:

My gut is finally starting to feel better, though any cheating (like a free latte at the mamas meeting today, curse you free latte day!) sends me back to clutching my stomach and wishing for death. I’m on a PPI until my stomach can heal, and then if, when I go off of them in a month, if comes back, they will start bringing out the big guns (antibiotics, etc). When I asked the doctor about the stress/ulcer connection, he said that there is a coorelation, not causation, so basically science can’t explain why those of us who stress more also have more ulcers. He said there are good studies that show that lowering stress does help the body heal in all sorts of ways, but yeah. I know it, and knowing it causes me anxiety, because I can’t stop stressing over the fact that I am anxious. Welcome to my world, would you like some plain rice with your banana?