The little things

A friend recently sent me an email using the phrase, "I'm sorry - I suck at life right now." This has been ringing in my mind because lately for me this has been kind of true, for obvious reasons. I feel like all I do is complain. And for that, gentle readers, I apologize. I'm really not as miserable as I sound. Believe it or not I still get out of bed with gusto each day, interact with my child whether I feel like it or not, and take decent care of myself even when it's a pain in the ass (I so often wish I could just not shower or take my iron or keep my teeth clean...but these things all have to happen, so I do them).

But here are some things that are getting super old:

Always feeling like I have a medicine ball made out of cement in my belly. I am just so heavy and uncomfortable all of the time. Sitting is agony, as is standing, lying down, walking, basically everything. How on earth do women with sciatica, back problems, etc, survive this??? Last time I remember a lot of tailbone pain and awful carpal tunnel pain in my wrists. None of that is happening this time - in fact other than an overall sense of "ugh" I don't have any pain per se. Which means I'm really getting off easy.

The constantly plugged up nose can go fuck itself. I blow my nose all day long, and then every night at about 9 PM my nose clogs up completely and I have to attempt to sleep breathing through my mouth, which is not only almost impossible for me but leaves me with a raw, dried out throat, mouth, and lips. This and, again, trying to sleep rotating around my medicine ball of a stomach which at this point only allows for direct side sleeping - no back, no stomach. Ah, good times.

I do believe the baby has now dropped, which brings the advantage of less heartburn (yay) and better ease of breathing...but also brings the unpleasantness of constantly, and I mean constantly, having to pee. It causes tremendous anxiety about being out of the house - I have had several full on accidents of the pee streaming down my legs variety, which makes me want to drink less, which causes all of these health issues - swelling, blood pressure (?), possibly the protein in urine, too. So it's imperative to drink mountains of water right now, but there's a real conflict there when that means constantly needing immediate access to a bathroom, which is difficult when your kid is playing somewhere, and you're always in places with no nearby bathrooms, or driving, or when you do get home you have to climb three flights of stairs and your kid takes a million years to do this and keeps sitting on each step wanting to play, also constantly stopping to fill your water bottle and drink isn't so convenient when in the two seconds it takes to do this your kid has turned on all the burners on the stove, pulled down all your curtain rods, emptied the garbage all over the floor that you now have to get on your hands and knees and pick up, all while simultaneously desperately needing to pee...yeah. This is why I'm none too keen on chugging gallons of water at this point even though I know I absolutely must unless I want to not be allowed to leave my next OB appointment. It's a conundrum.

I am attempting to drink a lot of water, protein load, and eat pretty clean this week in hopes of getting a better checkup on Thursday. It's kind of a science experiment. I didn't go to Krispy Kreme today as much as I so wanted to, which I consider a personal triumph. Sometimes you just have to take pride in the little things.

You can't always get what you want

This weekend I went to three birthday parties and had a gig Saturday night, so it meant seeing a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while and a lot of small talk about the pregnancy. Comments included, but were not limited to:

You definitely don't look nine months - more like seven! (they haven't seen me naked)

You look great! (Not true, but I appreciate the sentiment)

So, any day now, huh? (Not unless I have a horrible medical emergency)

And to the people I'm closer to, a recounting of my latest medical downturn. However I do feel a bit buoyed by a weekend full of normal blood pressure readings; I think even telling the doctors that I test myself all the time at home will at least make them feel like I'm taking this seriously and at least on some level being monitored. Maybe???

Anyway, I spent the day at birthday parties but then felt perfectly horrid that evening - really nauseated, tired and heavy, and like my belly was made out of cement. Oh, is this what's happening now - any amount of unusual activity and it sends me into a tailspin? I feel so incapacitated and shitty. Everything is such an effort now. All day I couldn't help but think this is how the elderly feel, those with chronic conditions - you just never feel well, and doing anything at all is a huge production. Thankfully at least some time from now this, for me, will end.

So how do I feel about a possible induction after thinking about it for a few days? Still not great, but I have to admit it would solve several problems - getting my sister out here, getting the babysitter here, and getting to the hospital. I hate to think about never getting to experience a spontaneous labor - but as noted, there's no saying that would be so great anyway, and heck, most women never get the birth experience they want. I always think of my friend who had a miserable lengthy back labor with her son, was determined to do it better the second time and got all set up with natural birthing techniques and a birth center, only to end up with a scary emergency c section. You can't always get what you want.

So now it really is just a matter of days - making it from one appointment to the next, one day to the next. I am going to start bringing my hospital bag to each appointment in case they don't let me leave. On some level it is kind of exciting - this really is it, the end! No matter what, six weeks from now there is no physical way I can still be pregnant. I made it through all of my hurdles - I got pregnant to begin with, I didn't miscarry, we passed all the genetic tests, we made it this far before hitting a bump in the road. Now just to get through the birth and we're home free. 

36 weeks

I am nine months today. Although I have definitely slowed down in the last couple of weeks, I'm still pleased that I'm able to do all of the things I'm doing - hauled groceries up the stairs today, can still lift B, can still get the stroller out, can still get through the day. 

It's such a waiting game at this point - I keep saying I wish I could just make it to March, but March seems like an eternity away. When I say "make it to March" I don't mean hold off on going into labor - I mean not get pushed into inducing before then. I am very much afraid that at any of my upcoming appointments they will simply not let me leave. This terrifies me. This happens to women all the time - you think everything is ok (or not), and you go into your standard appointment and a team of people tell you you're having the baby right now. It's the stuff nightmares are made of. And it just might happen to me. 

I bought a very expensive blood pressure cuff today. Results have been mixed. When I first got home I busted it out and my numbers were alarmingly high - I immediately ran it again, and they were a lot lower, and a third time, and they were lower still. What does this mean? Was I using it wrong? Is my BP spiking all day long and I don't know it? The instructions say to sit quietly for five minutes before using it; when I did this later tonight a few times, my numbers were great. But when they take my BP at the doctor's office it's never when I've been sitting. It's always after I've just come from walking a couple of blocks and it's always hot as hell out (it was in the 90s today!). And there's no arguing the fact that all of these conditions existed before but I had normal readings. Which is all that matters. My blood pressure is ticking up and that's that. 

I think I need to accept that anything can happen at this point and I need to just put my big girl panties on and deal with it. I feel my dream of a better birth slipping through my fingers, and it saddens me. Although I feel it's way too early to have this baby, I can't be married to that - I need to accept if my body is shutting down again it's shutting down and I need to be logical and not emotional. Theo will be ok - he's cooked for a good long time. Now all the birth announcements on my WTE app include pictures of plump, healthy babies with no tubes and no NICU stays. 

Selfishly, I wish I could just:

Get through my singing gig tomorrow night

Get my taxes done next weekend

Go to my last book club

Go to my tabulator's memorial on the 1st

Make it past 38 weeks

Go into labor before any interventions start happening

I feel very helpless and out of control. It's not a good place to be.

Going private (insurance)

So today's MediCal meeting was sort of...inconclusive. The one conclusive part for me was that MediCal is a mess, is not at all as it presents itself (it is far from free!), and most importantly, is unreliable. The tired-looking worker said everything has been impossibly backed up for months, and will be for the foreseeable future. I asked what to do if B has an emergency or needs medical care right now. She said to go to a County ER and try to negotiate my bill. Um...what?

So she did accept my profit & loss statement, but only for now - I would have to re-qualify again in about three months, and said that then they would "really need" my full tax return so they could comb over all my deductions and decide for themselves what my income is (!). And this is a process I'd have to endure every year.

The sad fact is Healthy Families was awesome, but it's gone, and unless you're dirt poor (below poverty level) you're now going to have to meet this "share of costs" which as we now know can be your entire income!

So I left my case "open" but as I walked out made the decision to just pay out of pocket for a real insurance policy for the kids rather than rely on the inefficient, shady, and unreliable government. I just can't take the hassle, exposure to risk, and invasiveness. 

I don't know how I'm going to pay for two more insurance policies...but I will say this: had this happened two years ago, I'd be out $1000 a month for the three of us. With my policy being $200 cheaper, it means I'm really only going to be out another $100 than what I was paying last year (the boys' policies should come in at about $150/mo each, and they're pretty decent policies through Health Net). So it's not that calamitous. Not great, but not horrible. And it's really worth the peace of mind.

Can you imagine if I was relying on MediCal for my maternity??? What a nightmare!!!

One more thing

So today I saw a new OB at Kaiser, just a one time thing as a fill in so I would see somebody this week and not skip a week. He was a nice man. But I got the worst news I personally could get at this point. My blood pressure is ticking up, and I have +1 protein in my urine. Which now flags me as at risk for pre-eclampsia. Again.

I am so sad/disappointed/angry about this new development I just want to cry. So I make it all this way, healthy, only to have everything fall apart in the last month - but not even late enough that I don't have to worry about being pushed into something too early. This couldn't have happened two weeks from now? Well, at least I don't see anyone again until I'm 37 weeks. I'm sure the other midwife will order a 24 hour urine catch...and may start those twice weekly NSTs again. Maybe I can hold out another week after. But oh my God, facing all that fear mongering and bullying again...honestly, I can't take it. I just can't. Only to end up with a fucking induction again anyway.

Today's doctor didn't seem concerned - he only brought it up when I asked about it. He said it is normal to have an uptick in blood pressure at this point (no shit), and suggested for peace of mind to buy a blood pressure cuff and test myself at home, which I plan on doing. 

Who knows what the protein is about. Dehydration maybe? Too much sugar this week, not enough protein in my diet? I can certainly work on those things in hopes of a better reading next week. Maybe I'm overreacting; maybe it's not going to be as bad as I think. I just wish to God I was further along. I would be so much less worried if I didn't still have a whole month of gestational development ahead of me. 

And let's face it - going into labor naturally is no guarantee of a better experience. I hold on to that in hopes of not having a repeat of last time's horror show...but just because the midwife and the doula tell me it's going to go better this time doesn't mean dick, really. Nobody knows. I just know I do not love the idea of spending the next two to four weeks being worried out of my mind and bullied. But, here we go, right?

And I have my (probably futile) MediCal meet tomorrow AM, and a mountain of math and paperwork to do tonight to prepare, which has to be done perfectly. I am so not up to any of this. Can I just zip ahead two months to when the baby's here and all this shit is behind me? Please???

Shyeah!

"Shyeah!" is the sound B makes when he sings along with his little boogie woogie piano thing and the singer on the tape says "yeah!" after each song. In fact he makes just about every sound these days - from cars honking to cats meowing to other kids calling for their mothers at play grounds. He says back most words I say to him. I'm not 100% sure he understands any of it and isn't just mimicking noises - but sometimes he surprises me. The other day I asked him where he'd put his toothbrush, not expecting anything from him, and he ran into the other room and got it for me. I didn't even think he knew the word toothbrush. Yet another example of me underestimating how much he knows/understands!

I got a very disturbing message from MediCal. I thought I was all set to go in there with my new profit & loss statement reflecting my lower income to try to get out of that crazy $2800 monthly deductible; then I get a message from the woman I'm actually meeting with saying I need to bring my complete tax return with my Schedule C so she can sit and go over my deductions one by one and decide which ones they accept and which they don't. So basically they expect me to endure a humiliating tax audit. This happened when I first tried to get Healthy Families back when B was born - some guy on the phone started going over my tax return line by line and telling me they don't accept my deductions. Can this process get any more invasive and awful??? Well, just for the record I have no intention of bringing my tax return. I'll bring what the first person I talked to told me to bring - my profit & loss statement, even my bank statements for the last few months showing my almost non-existent income. But it's pretty disheartening - I thought this would be an easy fix but now I'm worried there is no solution to our insurance woes - and I mean no solution. Here's the problem:

B and T can have free MediCal - but I have to meet nearly $3000 a month in costs before anything is covered.

I can't get B or T anything like my excellent policy. Apparently it only applies to me - under the ACA all low income kids are automatically shipped over to MediCal...and then stuck with this $2800 "share of costs" per month.

My broker sent me other policies I could buy out of pocket for B & T - and they are all terrible. Starting around $120 a month for the shittiest catastrophic plan possible, that covers nothing and has massive deductibles. So I could be out $300-$400 a month to cover the kids and still be stuck paying tens of thousands if there's a major illness, accident, etc. And this is affordable health care??? 

So I'm pretty distraught. If MediCal won't accept my claim of a lower income based on my P&L, I'm really, really stuck - I absolutely cannot afford two full price premiums for the kids, especially ones that leave me open to such enormous risk. I just don't know how I went from having this excellent policy for B that cost almost nothing and covered everything, to this pile of shit.

I am so terrified of this meeting Thursday. I'm so afraid the person I'm going to meet with is going to be some hard-on determined to prove I'm lying rather than try to figure out a solution. I'm afraid I'm going to lose it and start yelling or crying. I'm afraid when they ask me my yearly income I'm going to say the wrong number and completely screw myself, and then there's no going back. 

And guess what? If I decide to shell out the big $$ and buy new policies for B & T, I have to do it in one day since the window to apply closes on Friday, the day after my meeting. I'm in hell.

The Best of the Maternity Shoot

Here are some favorites from Saturday's maternity shoot. I'm so glad I did this - sometimes professional shoots seem like such an extravagance (like now, for example), but when you're capturing pregnancy and/or kids, there's really no price you can put on it - they change so fast, and pregnancy is so fleeting, that it's really nice to capture these moments with something slightly more exciting than an Iphone camera.

Of course the best part is how these idyllic photos mask the reality. The reality of this day was: B being super clingy and miserable and not wanting to take his hands out of his mouth or let me put him down for even two seconds; a screaming hissy fit as I tried to put his cute vintage outfit on in the car that resulted in a big red lipstick smear down one of his sleeves; my feet so swollen they could barely fit into my 1940's shoes, and my too tight nude fishnets making me feel like a whale (manatee?) caught in a net; mud everywhere and too cold for what we were wearing; me worrying about driving back down to OC hours later for a memorial service and then picking up B too late from the BK; me feeling generally lousy and tired; me worrying about insurance. But all these pictures show is a glowing new mother with her adorable toddler enjoying a day in the country. And that's how I'm going to choose to remember it.