Nitty and Gritty

Well not really, but here are some updates on my peeps.  In case you were wondering.


My friend, L, who has the spot on her lungs... it's shrunk.  Doc apparently thinks it was bronchitis.  I mostly believe my friend, but her whatever may come attitude has me wondering.  I often wonder unnecessarily, so maybe you can avoid reading too much into her comments about not wanting to know too much.


My sister made it through her surgery.  It was wonderful to be with her.  We did take a walk on the beach and around Imperial Beach on Monday (does that seem as long ago to you as it does to me?).  Weather was gorgeous but chilly.  This was my first time to their home.  Those poor people... their condo has ocean and estuary views from every freaking room in the whole freaking place.  The room I stayed in also had a view of the bullring in Tijuana.  Yeah, I don't want to go there or anything, but seriously... they have a view of the bullring.


My niece works at the estuary.  Strolling with her and my sister was like taking a guided nature walk.  Local birds, plants, history of wooden posts, plans for the area.  I wished my mother-in-law and husband could have joined us.  They would have enjoyed it as much as I did.


My sister, who could not eat anything and had to drink "Go Lightly" (which, as a nurse pointed out the next day made her "go heavy") insisted on making me dinner.  I requested a PB & J, but she offered me all of her favorite foods and made taquitos.  I know, you want her to be your sister, too.  She'd probably adopt you.  She's like that. 


Tuesday morning I drove her to the hospital.  She was very emotional.  Kept talking about her fears of growing a beard.  Of not making it through the surgery and what would happen to her children?  She even wondered if her son was going to turn out like her brother (that'd be a hell no).  The woman who checked her in was very kind, soothing, loving.  Sort of made it sound like, "Welcome to the club.  Just make sure you take care of yourself.  You're going to be fine."  As she walked away from the desk for a minute, Shelly turned around. 


"She's very nice," I said.


"Did you see her mustache?!"  Well now that she mentioned it... *sigh*... yes, there might have been a bit of 10:15 o'clock shadow.


Shelly's husband, Joey, and I spent as much time with her as they'd let us before they were supposed to wheel her off for surgery.  I have no idea why there was a delay of about 90 minutes between us leaving and when she actually went in.  Once she's healed a bit more, I'll ask her about it maybe.  There had been a "Code Green" (unruly patient) called to her area but we're pretty sure it wasn't for Shell.


Fynn spent most of the day in the wrap.  Thus, I spent most of the day walking.  It was a balmy day, maybe 70 degrees or so, clear blue skies and a view of the ocean from the hospital.  It was good to get out, to walk, to feel the sun's heat.  It would have been nice to sit longer than the time it took to nurse Fynn and play with her before she went back into the wrap, but I was glad she was so content.


Joe and I spent parts of the day hanging out.  He's not one of my favorite people, but aside from one incident several years back where I made myself perfectly clear I try not to let it show.  One extra good thing from my time down there is that we were able to appreciate how much each other cares for Shelly.  I bought him lunch.  He bought me a pack of Lifesavers.  After almost 10 hours without my sister between us, I feel like I know him better.  Understand parts of him, maybe.  And the rest I will continue to push back because he is my sister's choice.


When the surgery was finally over, around 6:30, Doc came out and showed us photos.  He pointed out dark spots and light areas and said, "She had a lot of reason to be in pain."  That just kills me.  You would never know Shelly was in pain.  Never.  I think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but I'm sure that being nice would go out the window after so many times of hurting because I coughed, walked too far, laughed too hard.


We got to see her around 8:00 that night.  Her room was enormous, with two walls of windows and an ocean view (if only she'd gotten there before dark).  She greeted her husband groggily.  Teased her daughter about not having a pretty smile since her braces were removed earlier that day.  Turned to me and very lucidly said, "Shannon, I know you are away from home and are missing your older daughter.  But it's late and you should stay at our place tonight and go home tomorrow.  I don't want anything to happen to you."  Two minutes later she thanked me for the flowers Joe had brought in that I'd gotten for her.  I don't even know how she'd seen them or how she knew I'd brought them.  They were across the room.  She's like a superhero of kindness.  


She is my Beth; I am her Jo.


I did not stay another night, and thank goodness.  Storms raged in a few hours after Fynn and I returned home.


My dad went down the next day to see her.  She came home this afternoon.  Joe, who travels for work, leaves for Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon.  I wish I could go back down to help out, but I return to work on Monday.  Her daughter has one more week off from school, and she's very helpful and capable.  And Joe's mom will be nearby, probably dropping in often.  She's very nice, too.


There's probably more to tell, but I want this to be my last post of 2010.  Five minutes to go.  Happy New Year to you all.  May 2011 be everything you hope.

Deep Cleansing Breath

I said goodbye to Tom and Mad almost an hour ago.  Normally I wouldn't have any problem getting back to sleep.  Heck, normally I don't even wake up.  But in a few hours Fynn and I are heading south of San Diego to visit my sister.  I had envisioned a lovely lunch and a walk on the beach or maybe the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge, which is adjacent to their home.  Instead, we'll spend the day sharing as much of a clear liquid diet as I can reasonably partake in without affecting my milk supply and watching the movies she has lined up.


We will probably spend a lot of time talking tonight while everyone else is asleep.  She's afraid.  She's afraid of the surgery, of the recovery, of waking up and finding that she's grown a beard.  Of not being a whole woman anymore.  Of sex being different; that she might have a black hole without her uterus.


I am sad.  Pretty sure I'd be feeling the same things if the roles were reversed.  Not quite sure how to help her see that her fears are normal, but that "normal" doesn't make them true.


Surgery is not until tomorrow at 12:30.  That seems like cruelty to me, but maybe she can at least sleep late.  I guess a lot of people don't view 7:15 as sleeping in (I don't either, but Mad does).  She'll be in the hospital several days.  I'll be home tomorrow night.  I wish I could stay longer.

The First Big Thing and Girl Parts

Okay, it's the second, really, but the first first thing isn't working out so well.  What the heck am I talking about?  Baby stuff!  Yay!


A couple of months ago my niece gave us her old dresser.  It's the right color and size, and the style even works with the girls' room.  But my brother and his wife are heavy duty smokers.  We have had that dresser and all the drawers spread out over our patio on sunny days and wiped it down with vinegar five or six times.  The smell seemed to be gone well enough that we moved it upstairs to our loft.  Still didn't notice any bad aromas.  We had Mad's party and the big reveal on Sunday (more on that later), and put the drawers back into the dresser just for tidiness.  When I took my dad upstairs to show him Mad's "new bed" we stopped and took a whiff of the dresser.


I can barely smell anything, but as soon as we opened the drawer, I could smell that smell.  Ugh!  If anyone has a workable solution to get the stench out, I would love to hear it.  Plan B is to post wanted ads on Freecycle.org and hope we get a better dresser.


So what has supplanted the dresser as the first big thing?  We got the baby's mattress.  As we've learned more about being green (I'm proud to say we were green before green was cool... but embarrassed to say we're lazy... so maybe we're really teal? aqua?) and health conscious, we have learned about all the nasties that get put into crib mattresses.  So Mad has our family's first organic mattress.  And by organic, I don't mean the cotton cover is organic, but sprayed with chemical flame retardants.  I mean it's got an organic rubber core and cotton and wool padding and cover.  Wool is a natural flame retardant.


We love the mattress, but hated the whole process of getting it.  I found a website for a company based in Vermont, called and made the order.  The 2-3 weeks estimate for shipping turned into 10 weeks.  It almost didn't arrive before Madelyn!  And when it did arrive, it was folded in half in a box.


Even if that company were still in business, there's no way I'd send them my money again.  We found another company, EcoBaby Pure Rest, that not only manufactures their own mattresses, they have a showroom.  And they're in my hometown, San Diego!  I called to confirm that they had mattresses in stock, Nance and I made the drive and picked one up.  It's leaning against the wall in our living room right now.  Shipping is only $35, which is about what I spent in gas, but I was glad to have it in my hands immediately (okay, after about two and a half hours of driving).  The bonus of the day came when the sales guy, Victor, told me they give a 20% discount for coming to pick it up.  I saved $88.  Yay!


To make it less of a spent-the-whole-day-driving kind of day, we went over to the harbor and had a fabulous lunch at The Fish Market in an enclosed patio right over the water.  The only downside for me is that I haven't completely regained my taste buds from this pesky cold.


In other Baby Fynn news, I had the EKG done yesterday.  Her heart is strong and healthy.  Even though I have some minor heart things, she does not.  The doctor asked if I avoid caffeine.  I do, in part because of my own palpitations and mainly because who wants to have a hyper baby en utero?  Then he told us something we'd never heard before:  Caffeine during pregnancy is linked to babies developing skipped heartbeats, too.  Who knew?


After he was done checking out her heart, Doc spent a little time doing another ultrasound.  For part of it he switched to 4D.  I saw my daughter's face.  It felt like meeting her a little.  I can't wait to really be face to face with her.


And, causing me to think these ultrasound people are more than slightly obsessed with genitalia, he reconfirmed that we are having a girl.  The picture he printed is pretty grainy, so to be sure we didn't forget that we're having a girl, he typed "Vagina" and put three arrows pointing to it.  If that wasn't enough, he also typed a message in the corner.


JUST LIKE MOMMY!


Thanks, dude, for the picture I will never show (at least until she's, you know... annoying me around her friends or something).