The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

So, disregard that entire long, boring post I wrote this morning. After talking to a few moms from the new co-op, and running the idea by Tom, we decided that we will give it a try. “School” starts the week after Labor Day. I can still see us homeschooling in the future, but as my sister said in a comment on the last post, “… really the best thing any parent can do for their child is to recognize their own limits,” and boy do I think my limits are going to be pushed in the spring.

I have spent the majority of the last week trying to justify spending $500 a month for half day preschool for Ella.  The topic has been on the table for months, and until we found out about baby #3, I maintained that we shouldn’t spend money on something I feel like I am capable of. We’ve always been on the fence about homeschooling long term, but preschool I felt like we could handle.

That is, until I tried to imagine what our lives will be like in April. Not only are newborns rather demanding, but if you’ve met Alice you also know that she is going to have a rough transition, so I am bracing myself for her neediness to ratchet up a notch. I expect a lot of my time will be spent nursing the baby on the couch, with Alice whining and weaseling herself into my lap, and poor Ella waiting (always waiting) for me to have a minute to pay attention to her. (Oh hey mom-guilt, how is it going?) For all the maturity that Ella is capable of (and she astounds me by her compassion and patience at times) she is also a small child, and she does not thrive unless she is given the attention she needs. And she will get that attention by any means possible, even it means it is bad attention.

So, we started searching. In our area there are four options: in-home preschools, co-op preschools, private religious preschools, and private hippie preschools (Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio, etc).

Tom and I agreed that neither the in-home preschools, or the private religious preschools, would fit our family well. The in-home preschools which we looked at almost always turned out to be daycares under a different name, and neither of us feel that it is worth the money to pay for daycare for our nearly-four year old when I am at home. The private religious schools, while a great option for religious families, makes us both uncomfortable, because hi, we have hangups (and many of the schools require you to be a member of the congregation anyway).

So, our energy has been focused on the co-op preschools and the hippie schools. The plus side  on the co-op schools, is that the programs costs $60 to $100 a month, which would not be a problem. The downside is that the co-op schools only offer two mornings a week for preschoolers, and require a lot more parent participation (working in the classroom one of the two days that she would be there, attending all business meetings, committees, etc). And while I would love to be with Ella, the issue of childcare for Alice, as well as the question of what happens in April when the baby is born, makes this less than ideal. Plus, they are not flexible on which classroom Ella would be best suited for, even though she is reading lately, and the three year old classroom focuses on teaching the ABCs.  I don’t think she is a genius, but she is just shy of the four year old classroom date cutoff, and I think it would suit her a lot better.

Because of this, I would much rather send her to a program that is less focused on academics, and more geared towards letting her explore her own interests – you know, hippie school. Within 5 miles of our house, there are six, and of those six, three have immediate openings. But the huge downside is the cost, which is outside of our range right now. I know these schools are worth every penny, but I can not pull $500 out of the couch cushions every month. Asking family to chip in would be an option if the economy hadn’t hit everyone hard this past year, but it has. And, since we’ve dropped the price of the house nearly $45,000 since we first listed it, the money we will come out of the sale with will cover the downpayment on the little house, and some (very necessary) remodeling, leaving very little going into the bank (and that money is quickly becoming spoken for, hello homebirth).

All of this leads us back to square one, which is to have her home with us all day every day (other than when my lovely, wonderful friends take her for a bit). And I’m not sure, come April, if any of us are going to be happy with this.

(Edit: I just got a call back from one of the co-ops which was full earlier, and it sounds like it is worth looking into. They are flexible on age/ability, meet three times a week, have a childcare swap, and are open to letting pregnant mamas work extra hours in the months leading up to birth, so they are not expected in the classroom right away. I’m talking to T about his one tonight. Hey universe, you could have had them call me this morning before I wrote out this massive post, aye?)

Today, after many months of waiting for an appointment, I finally saw The Amazing Gut Doctor. I brought in a timeline of how often I go through these kinds of attacks (no less than twice a year, though rarely are they as severe as the linked attacks) and he was not only puzzled by my symptoms, but also very apologetic that so many people have misdiagnosed me over the last ten years. It was 1999 when I was told I had stomach migraines (yes they are real apparently, but not what I am going through) and since then I have been told it was: gallbladder, ulcers, IBS, GERD, and my favorite, stress. (This is where my sister jumps in and says “WORMS!” but no, they’ve tested for that, thankyouvermuch.) He told me that he honestly doesn’t have a clear idea of what could be causing these attacks, but that he doesn’t think it is any of the above.

Of course, after looking at my history and asking some more background questions, he came to the part of the form that had a big fat checkmark beside “Are you currently pregnant” and we hit a brick wall. Very few of the tests/treatments for Mystery Gut Disorder are pregnancy-friendly, so other than a blood test and a ultrasound of my abdomen, all testing is being put off until May of 2010. This is where I roll my eyes a bit because I waited eight months for this appointment, and if I had gotten in to see him in a reasonable time I would not have been pregnant. Go go private healthcare, the shining star of efficiency.

But, the day (and co-pay) were not a waste, as now, if the Mystery Gut Disorder strikes again, I can get in to see him right away. And I won’t lie: it is nice to have someone validate that this sucks. I’ve not had great luck with doctors in my life (and those are just the linkable experiences!), so finding one who seemed to be interested in actually helping me is refreshing. Look at me, liking a doctor. Next thing you know I will be getting that hand thing I have looked at by someone qualified!  And then I may even take care of my asthma! Thrilling!

So how about a real life update, aye?

I am about 7 weeks pregnant now, though I had to look that up for the 3967236th time today. With Ella, I knew down to the day, and with Alice I at least knew the week. This poor kid, already feeling the effects of ‘third child’ syndrome. Don’t worry baby, I promise there will be pictures of your childhood, and I will do my best not to forget you at restaurants. The good news is that by the time you are a teenager I will be a lot more relaxed, so you will probably be invited to have wine at dinner with us. It will all even out, you’ll see.

7 weeks pregnant is 17% of the way there, and April feels both very far away and much, much too soon. I am classically, sitcomically pregnant, with an aversion to eating anything but ice cream and banana peppers (not at the same time. Yet.) and spending all my time crying about a commercial on TV, or rushing to the bathroom to throw up. I am both exhausted and dealing with insomnia, which does not help my patience level, which is already dangerously low. I look pregnant already, which Tom likes to think means that it is twins, but really it is just bloat and the fact that I’ve had three pregnancies in four years (meaning that my uterus has not fully settled back into my pelvis since 2005.) I am absent minded, and regularly stand up to do something and then have to sit back down and remember what it was. I am complaining constantly, but also walk around with a grin on my face.

*

We had a promising house showing the other day, and it would be ideal for them to make an offer right now, since we are planning to move to the little house October 1st. Of course I would never live it down, since it would fit in perfectly to Tom’s “Everything will be fine” life philosophy. (Verses my “But what is Plan H?!” life philosophy.)

The little house will be empty on September 15th, and we plan to use that two weeks to: rip up the carpets/determine whether refinishing the floors will be worth it, disinfect EVERYTHING, put in a dishwasher, plan out the plumbing renovations (adding a bathroom, renovating the existing one), assessing whether we need to replace the windows ASAP or if it can wait until Spring, and possibly paint. The house has been a bachelor pad for nearly 15 years, so the descumming of the kitchen, and tearing up the carpets are my priority right now. I’m not sure if I want to know how bad it really is.

*

And because it makes me smile, a bunch of happy kids.

After telling the story twice this week, and finding myself in tears both times, I realized I have never written out exactly what happened early in Ella’s pregnancy. I’ve skirted around it, because truthfully, 4 years later, it still is too big, and too scary to look at straight on. I even tried to write a nonfiction piece about it for a workshop class years ago, and after the ten minutes  of acclaim, someone finally asked “So, uh, what is this about anyway?” and when I explained it, everyone cocked their head to one side and said “What?! Are you sure that is what it was about?”  I just couldn’t get near enough to it to even tell the facts, to make it clear just how close we all came to losing everything that matters to me now.

Early in Ella’s pregnancy, after the giddy fear had passed and we were beginning to dream about what our futures would look like, I started bleeding. I did not have an OB yet, so I waited all day for it to stop, knowing that rushing to the ER was pointless. Tom encouraged me to go in that afternoon, to make sure that I was okay (even though we both figured that the pregnancy was lost) and I agreed. I was there nearly 10 hours, and 8 hours in they did an ultrasound as I sobbed. Later, after I had finally been moved into a curtained area instead of the hall, a timid intern drew me a picture of a uterus that was 4 weeks further along that I thought I was, and a tiny, heartbeatless dot which was my dead baby. The first words out of my mouth were “Could it be twins? I know my dates, twins run in my family, I just worry…” and was cut off by her hand on my bare knee. “We would have seen another one, I’m sorry. We can give you a pill today, schedule a D&C for tomorrow, or let you follow up with your OB this week.” I started to cry again, and she left quietly, and sent in a nurse to handle paperwork, and to ask me if I wanted to “end this today, or risk an infection” while I waited. I said I just wanted to go home and she sighed, and gave me the name of a OB “who will talk some sense” into me.

Tom and I spent the next few days in his room, avoiding school, work, roommates, and trying to make sense of what was happening. I had stopped bleeding, still had morning sickness, and didn’t understand how my body could betray me by not only conceiving a doomed baby, but holding onto it for so long. I didn’t understand how my dates could be so far off, and I couldn’t stop dreaming of two little blonde girls riding on the back of an elephant.

When I was finally able to get in and see the OB I had been referred to, he was gone at a birth, but one of his (eight) partners was able to sit down with me and explain what the intern had already told me. Again, I asked if it could have been twins, and she said no, but that she would do more blood work and an another ultrasound if I wasn’t sure. I agreed, and again I sobbed while they did the ultrasound. She told me that they saw nothing new on the ultrasound, but when I again declined the D&C or cytotec, she made an appointment for me to see the original OB the next day. “By then your labs will be back, and he will make your options clear.”

So, again I went in, ready to ask “What if it is twins?” and instead was immediately presented with papers to sign for my D&C. I asked about my labs, and he told me that I needed to get used to the fact that this was a “missed abortion” and sign the papers. I asked about my labs again, and he told me, with obvious frustration, that my numbers were barely climbing, and that at this stage my numbers should be doubling. “What if it was twins, and now it is not, and that is why my numbers are rising but not..” He stood up, and left the papers on the exam table, and turned to me. “You need to sign these, otherwise any complications from infection will not be covered by your insurance” and he left. The exam room I was in was the one closest to the ultrasound room, and I sat, stunned, and listened to a healthy heartbeat playing though the speakers, a mother’s laugh, and a father’s voice in awe.

I agreed to come in in two days if nothing had happened. I spent a lot of time walking around our neighborhood those two days, numb.

On a Friday in April, the universe, God, fate, dumb luck took pity on me, and my appointment to discuss the D&C was with yet another doctor in the practice. He was older, and when he came into the room he told me quietly that he was sorry for what I was going through. He sat near the window and opened my chart, and sat quietly reading, flipping  the pages. “You are here to sign papers for a D&C?” he asked, and I nodded. “Well, based on these results, I’m not comfortable scheduling a surgery yet. We just do not have enough information here to say “yes” or “no”… It does lean towards “no”, but I am not comfortable doing this surgery without more tests. You are not text-book developing, but very few women are….” We agreed that we would do another blood draw, see the results on Monday, and if they were even a tiny bit higher, we would do another ultrasound.

On a Monday in April, I watched a tiny heartbeat light up the screen, and there behind her, another fetus, still and silent. Tom and I sat in stunned silence, and then suddenly burst into tears and laughter, gripping each other and grinning. This little flicker of light was our child, our Elinor, our little blonde girl who still lights up my days. My silly, beautiful, smart, compassionate, amazing daughter.

And I almost lost her. I was almost bullied into killing her.

And I am still so angry.

Man, what I wouldn’t give for some buttered toast right now. But, you see, the bread is wayyyy over there in the cabinet, and the toaster is wayyyy over there in a different cabinet, and the butter, oh, the butter is in the fridge, which I can not even see from here. So I think it is clear: You should make me some buttered toast.

Then again… no. Stop. No toast. Gah, why did you open the bread bag, it smells horrible. Are you trying to make me puke?

But, while you are in there, do we have any beets? No? Well… it’s only 10pm, Safeway is still open. I’ll find your shoes. Except, oh no, leaning over makes me feel ill. Let me sit down there. I really think the only thing that would make me feel better would be beets.

Or maybe a Sonic slushy. Oooooo and some of their crushed ice. Oh god I love ice. I know they say it is a sign of an iron deficiency, but I think it is really just because it is fun to crunch. Like chips. VINEGAR CHIPS. Oh, my mouth is literally drooling. Ugh, it is making me gaggy.

You know what? Can you just get me some ice cream instead? I know it is all I have eaten this week… but it has protein, right? And if you put it on a cone, we can call that fiber.

Yesterday Ella found one of her birthday presents that I had not squirreled away well enough (two birthdays + Christmas in December = much too expensive to just buy all at once) and instead of arguing with her and putting it back away to be a ‘surprise’ later, I just chalked it up to a lesson learned: Ella can now see and reach on top of my dresser. It won’t be long before she can see my cookie stash on top of the fridge, and then we are all doomed.

The gift was this tiny little camera that I found for $4 the other day, and which is exactly as crappy as you would expect a $4 camera to be. It’s grainy, dark, hard to hold and Ella adores it.  I don’t think she has put it down, and has been known to break out in song about how much she loves it.

Behold: what Ella sees

Cookie Monster’s gaping yaw

Alice yelling “Meeeeeeeeee! Mine! Hey!”

Mommy coming outside to see what all the yelling is about

and, like a true Day in The Life‘er, a self portrait.

Well, what do you follow up “Hey, I’m adding another human being to planet Earth!” with? (Other than a huge “Thank you” to all of you who commented and congratulated us, every single one made me grin.)

How about a picture of myself as a newborn, along with what my mom wrote on the back. Okay!

(I’m trying to scan my entire baby book, in an effort to record digitally all the things that I would be tempted to run back into a burning house for. My poor kids do not have baby books, but hey, they have, uh, this blog. Sorry kids! At least it won’t burn!)

It was a week after Alice was born that Tom asked “So, when can we do this again?” He had already gone back to work, and I was starting to feel the pull of the black hole that was postpartum depression, so for a brief moment I considered how much damage I could do with a boppy and a hardbound book, but instead, I just said “Never”.

In those early months, I gave away clothes as quickly as Alice outgrew them. By the time she was a year old, I had sold the bouncy chair, the infant carseat, the strollers, the cosleeper. I gave all my pregnancy clothes to the women’s shelter, and told myself that I was protecting myself, with a sort of a preemptive breakup. I divorced the idea of having more babies, because I was so scared of falling into that pit again. I loved my little family too much to put them through that.

But, Tom is a persistent person, and would ask gently every few months, gauging just how strong my resolve was. As the months went by and the depression subsided,  I started to soften to the idea. It didn’t hurt that Ella brought up the idea of another baby brother or sister constantly, or that Alice was quickly shedding her baby self. I caught myself staring at photos of the girls as newborns, and of myself pregnant.

In December I posted about the possibility of adding a third to our family (including a conversation in which Tom proposed having SEVEN children, which sent me into hysterical laughter), but left the subject there. In reality, we removed all barriers at that point, and started, for the first time in our relationship, trying to make a baby. I told myself that if it happened right away, I would have nine months to sort out my head, and get excited. I had time.

January, February, March, April, May, June, and July went by, and I still wasn’t pregnant, or excited. Every month I was disappointed when my period came, but I also felt a sort of relief. “Okay,” I thought “another month to prepare.” I hung out on forums, read articles on the importance of the luteal phase, and kissed the sweet bald heads of friend’s newborns. I saw doctors about my confusing cycles, I nightweaned Alice in an attempt to push the reset button on my body, I charted my temperatures, I took vitamins. But the hesitancy was always there.

And then, it wasn’t. Flipping though a magazine a few weeks ago, I saw a photo of a little blonde boy, and I thought “Oh, that is what our son will look like, I can’t wait.” and then did a mental double take. Did I really just think that? We were driving out to the lake at the time, and I must have made a surprised noise because Tom asked me “What?” and I laughed.  ”When we have a son, he will look something like this kid” I said, showing him the picture, and Tom grinned. “Nah, ours will be cuter.”

You know where this is going, right?

Last week we found out that we are expecting an baby in early April, and despite my best efforts to keep it a secret for a while longer, Ella overheard enough conversations to piece it all together, and has been telling everyone she comes across. The cashier at Safeway knows, the other kids at the park know, the dogs we walk by every day on the way to the park know… and now you do too.

As frustrating as the last 7 months have been, I feel so intensely blessed that all of those months went by without a positive test. I do not want to spend the first months of this pregnancy conflicted or scared. What will come will come, but right now I am healthy, and oh so happy. (Tom is too, of course.)