The Waiting Game

Here we are, one day shy of week 39. I am ready but not ready. Still surreal that another person- less portable than he/she is now, will be joining us soon. Whenever I am in public with the crew I do a head count and always feel like I am missing one. I suppose when I get to 5, we will be complete. I am now so grotesquely huge in the front that strangers on the street regularly offer unsolicited comments ("a boy right?", "any day now") and congratulations. I am not apparently big enough to get a seat on the subway- this week I have been offered a few seats, but I ride many a subway standing. I am actually more comfortable standing, but that is not the point. I am in and out of school with doctors appointments, trying to complete my end of the year school reports as my sub teaches my classes. Very lucky to have such a flexible job, boss- no complaints here.
At my last visit to the ob, yesterday, it was confirmed that 1. The second doctor does not know me and 2. She is as annoying as my regular one. Not a visit goes by where she does not offer some "scary fact (Dr- "sometimes, in your third pregnancy- your uterus will be so stretched out that it does not contract efficiently and labor slows down" Me- "This is not my third pregnancy and my last labor and delivery was my biggest and fastest"), warning (Dr-"Because you are older, we cannot let you go a week past your due date", Me; "I am more than a week from my due date" and then in my head- are you going to remind me of my age every time I come??), or uninteresting offer (Dr- "Would you like to have the baby today? I can strip your membranes."). Anyway, it looks like my regular one may be on vacation when I deliver, leaving me with her carbon copy, ie it will make no difference. I can only hope that this baby comes out fast, or as my friend at work says "as fast as it went in."
Recently a friend asked AleVit about the impending arrival. A did not want to talk about it and V said that hospital part was disgusting. I assured him he did not have to come to that part, to which he replied "I'm coming!"
Any guesses as to the arrival date, gender and weight of this baby? The nurse at my school is convinced that it is a big boy. I told her that if I have a 7 lb girl, I will have to hunt her down. I am hoping for a 9 lb baby (8.5 might be more realistic but I want to justify the two tons that I weigh) and we are still back and forth with the boy name so a girl would be easier (though- fuck you John Legend). See you soon?!

Week 35.4

Last week's ob visit presented many unappealing and sure to fail options for this puppy to be born naturally. Apparently, this bebé has not committed to being head down and that is not acceptable to any USA doctor. I may have to move abroad soon, as a version seems to be fruitless and unless we can "fake" being head down for the next 10000 sonograms (think one per week at dr and one per week at imaging center from now on) they will schedule me for a c-section. I am going this afternoon and I hope this baby can be or at least "act" head down so I do not have to worry about this. I am confident he/she could come out in any direction (we already have proof of that with A) but my doctor is not interested in my opinion!

Yay! Booh.....

Let's start with the bad news first. I discovered a lump by my navel yesterday and to make a long story short, it is a hernia. I have just fat (yum) poking out through the weakened abdominal muscles (intestines would be an emergency) and I may or may not need to get it repaired. It is depressing to be so defective. How many operations and problems can one pseudo healthy person have? Put me down for quadruple wisdom tooth removal, double knee arthroscopic surgery and two microdiscs. What the duck?

Okay, the good news is that J can read!! Not like fluidly or anything but the process has taken off. Very happy for him. Also, V peed in the potty last night and tonight. He proudly called abuela and said "I peed in the potty. I talk to grandpa." Once he was on the phone, V upped it to "I pooped on the potty." He is ambitious. If this streak continues, he will get to choose big boy underpants- an item I will actually splurge on for this midget.

Off to feel bad about myself and my dilapidated body (CAT scan revealed all sorts of signs of my broken self) and to eat something.

Back From The Dead

This has been quite a week. J began to get droopy and lethargic on Saturday. Without going on and on, I can tell you that the last five days were crazy. Each day he seemed weaker and would just sit or lay down everywhere. He spent most of Tuesday at the nurse. When he was awake he was catatonic-like most of the time. I took him to the doctor on Tues. Doctors, it turns out, do not have many answers. He did not have strep, he was not anemic. Instant depression? A rare disease? The weirdest part was no other symptom. No pain, no fever, no cold, no diarrhea, no nada. Yesterday he stayed home and slept almost entire day. Napped from 8-11am from 2-5 pm and was in bed at 6:45pm. At 3:30 am he came to my bed full of energy to say "I have two pillows, do you want to sleep in my bed?" To make him be quiet, I went to his bed. He continued: "Do you think Papi is lonely now?" Me: I don't know. You can go back to my bed, I am staying here in yours. J: "I know. I was just thinking." Thankfully he went back to sleep and when he awoke at 7am, he was back to his usual whistling, karate chopping self. It was very strange and sudden. A virus? A growth spurt? Sudden and acute depression? All I know, is that I am happy he is back. V is now high on the radar, the worst behaved two year old I ever had. More on that later. Never. A. Dull. Moment. NADM!

Here We Go Again

J got a gash above his eyebrow while playing at home. I did not think much of it but when F came home he deemed it stitch worthy. What a pain! F took him to the ER, our home away from home, Mt Sinai and 2.5 hours later (and *(&#*& $200 copay!) J was back home, glued up and ready to sleep. This means he will miss swimming (we are all six! going to be hitting the pool every Saturday this fall) on Saturday but that his handsome face will have a smaller scar. Never a dull moment!

Penis Baggies?

Yes! Coxsackie is what A, and now I guess V (also with a fever) have. Yippee! M's playdate invite was revoked so I had to suspend my invitation to one of J's friends to come over. My intention was to have the two boys alone, not with M and two sick babies. Four kids is enough for now. Long summer ahead! Nothing to do for this virus, just ibuprofen for the fever and pain and wait.....

15 Month Check Up

Babies are big! Aside from learning that shots still make them sad and angry, we learned that, like I suspected, A is taller than V but he is heavier and has a bigger head. So glad to be back at a good pediatrician. Even though I think they do not speak much, they apparently only know three words on average at this age so we are ahead of the curve:) Babies started the day off dunking toys in the toilet, full of J's pee. Good supervision mamma! They ended the day with an hour walk home (78 and WEA ain't that close to home) with their true love, L. While at the doctor, A looked very concerned with Dr. D examined V (and he did his fake cry the whole time). When it was her turn, she went under a counter and stood there motionless, trying to maybe have the doctor she was no longer there. V's new move from the doctor's office is to slap his thighs and laugh. Once he got that this was funny, he did it non-stop, cracking himself up each time. My my these babies are big. If I were a rich woman, I might have one more. But then I remember, four is a lot and I am already cuckoo.

Survived

J is home and well. He is actually behaving like a little tyrant and milking the situation a bit too much. It was very sad to see him in a hospital gown. They were all very nice and NYU has a super children's section with more information, stickers, attention, and kid lingo than you could possibly want. J sat down to watch some Night at the Museum right after taking his initial medication. Two minutes later a nurse came in to tell us to not let him get up because he would be kind of "drunk." I then noticed that J looked stoned and that he was slurring his speech. A few minutes later he was going in with F and then we just waited. I was totally fine. Anxious but fine. I did have a thirty second panic attack at one point and then I was fine. When we went to see him in recovery he was on his side with a sort of pacifier in his mouth, a cap on his head,  bandaged IV, he looked very fragile and small in the bed. After sleeping a while J woke up and he was still ooouut of it. He was also grumpy. Now he is home and well. Super grumpy and very demanding, milking every minute of his gatorade, candy, video grame heaven. Thank you to everyone who sent good waves, nice emails, and love to the midget.

Reality Sets In

I have been in semi denial about J's "little operation", "small procedure", or as I am know coming to think of it "they are putting my son to sleep for a 1.5 hour why the fuck does it take so long? operation in 24 hours." I was anxious to get the call yesterday to know what time it is tomorrow. M was fighting over whether o not heaven exists with J in the morning, distraught because he said it didn't.  M also cried a lot in school yesterday and just wanted her teacher to hug her, unable to articulate what was wrong, "bad day" she kept saying. She is anxious I fear, and worried for her best friend. When J was a year old he was anemic and had to have blood regularly drawn (another moronic pediatrician- a tale for another time). One time M was with me, as the doctor, nurse, and myself had to hold him down. M started having a hysterical laughing attack, completely unable to handle seeing her brother suffer. I digress. At 6:30pm I spoke to the nurse. Once I spoke to the nurse, who was very nice, I felt worse instead of better. It all of a sudden became real, immediate, and scary. I know it is a little deal, that there is little risk, and that is very common, but he is little, and I know he is going to hate the IV, and that once he surmises what surgery is (and moves past the "I will get gatorade!), he will freak out. We have to be at the hospital at 8:15am tomorrow (abuelo will take M to school and L the babies- it takes a village for real) his operation is from 9:45-11:15am. I did not enjoy the words "pain", "medication" or "child life specialist" over the phone, but I also know that many parents have to endure real and big medical problems. I am going to be brave. F told J that he was brave. J concurred. Then he asked: "What does brave mean? Does hurting count?" I hate hospitals, I hate kids in hospitals, I am an adult. I am going to deal with this.

Medical Nightmare Comes to a Head

This is a long one. Brace yourselves. My current (soon to be ex) pediatrician's office is comprised of apparently incompetent doctors who like to do trial and error and wait and see as their methods of diagnosis. Case in point, A was diagnosed with an ear infection on her third visit (in 8 days!). On Wed V went along with his sis and I was told he did not have an ear infection, just a fever and pink eye. Since his fever had started on Tuesday and they always use "3 days" as the magical fever number (until you get there of course) I took him in as a precaution on Friday afternoon. Doctor told me one ear was fine and that the other had a lot of wax. She used a tool to remove some but none came out and then concluded that he did not have an ear infection and that we should continue to have a fever and see what came next. Yes, this sounds like how a supermarket cashier might diagnose and treat a medical problem, ie clueless. V continued to be VERY irritable and to not sleep at all during the day after a night of high fever during which he also slept poorly. Fast forward to Friday night. I hesitantly went out for 2.5 hours even though V was very fussy at bedtime. As instructed, tío G gave V Advil at 9:30 (at this point his blood is comprised of mostly Advil I guess) when he woke up crying (and drenched in sweat. How many times can a fever break?) At 11pm I went to bed and at 12:15 woke up to the worst crying I ever heard. V would not stop. Would not let me hold him. Take a bottle or a pete (how I wished I were still nursing at that moment!) The crying was so disturbing that I knew a. he was in a lot of pain b. i had a problem c. the neighbors and/or police would be coming over soon. After 30 minutes (you have no idea how long that is when your baby is crying at the top of his lungs- he is indeed hoarse today) I called my mother. We could not hear each other but I said "I need help now" and she, along with grandpa appeared 20 minutes later. At this point, V had all of a sudden completely stopped crying and was completely still, which actually worried me more. I packed a bag of items, V in the Bjorn and we (grandpa and I) cab it to Mount Sinai. He is in the computer under Epstein, B  TWA (took me a while to get that- my name, Boy, Twin A for those of you who are slow like me) so we fly straight in. Here's a tip if you want fast service in an emergency room- bring a real or prosthetic belly and a real (or borrowed) baby. We see a lovely emergency room pediatrician who tells me that 1. V is okay because he is breathing well, apparently the most important thing with babies and 2. he has one ear that looks good and another one that has wax. "Oh, I know" I tell her and relay my afternoon jaunt to the butcher to diagnose V. Well, he has a scab in his ear from having been hurt with the tool to remove wax and when she gently does remove wax (and I see the wax) she tells me that he ear is VERY INFECTED and full of pus. So I am relieved because now we know why he is in such awful pain. But I am livid. The doctor clearly fucked up, said nothing, and then did a fake "his ear looks fine" to not deal. My guess is that a normal person would not doubt what two different doctors said within two days about her child. I am not normal and anyone who heard V cry would have taken him to the ER as well. So he got a dose of antibiotics and a prescription for the same one A is one (but a much higher dosage) and went to sleep at 3am. And woke up at 5:45am. Since then he took about three 30 minute naps. He is miserable. F came home (after what seemed like 3 weeks not 8 days) and put V to sleep without much work. So I am hopeful that my poor baby will sleep. And I am scared of F and going to the doctor with them Mon am (need their one year check up and to get all of the files to change doctors). I may need to sedate him. Well, the good news is that now we know what V has and the bad is that doctors continue to NEVER cease to amaze me with their incompetence.

Light At The End of The Tunnel?

Well, I take back the "on the mend" post. After what I thought was his fever breaking, V proceeded to wake up so damn hot last night that I thought I was going to have to take him to the hospital. The doctor assured me that the fever was fine as long as it went down with drugs and that he was not having other (drastic) symptoms. I medicated him and it went down. Today I did not medicate him in the am so that the doctor could see him with a fever if he had one. I was hoping for an ear infection, something concrete to treat but nada. In the last 9 days A has been to the doctor 3 times and V 2 times. I am pediatricianed out. And I clearly need a new one. Tonight's bedtime brought antics that I have NEVER seen. It took so long to get him to stop crying that we took him out, gave him milk, let him play...all this without having had more than two tiny naps and a shitty night's sleep the night before. I need V to feel better. NOW. F arrives tomorrow pm and I am off to Hawaii. Just kidding. I am always on whether BEST or SUPPORTING, I am in the film. Which I love. But sometimes I need an understudy. Notte.

Medical Update

Yes, this is a contraption that I bought upon the doctor's recommendation. Yes, I did suck the mocos out of 3 of my children's noses today (I did not put on the lipstick though). After a mid-morning visit to the doctor with 3 monkeys, I finally got confirmation of what I already knew (babies have pink eye, some virus that gives them a fever (V) and an ear infection (A)). Thank goodness for L who took them home, waited at hour at CVS for the drugs and stayed with them until I got back with the other two. I need a spreadsheet to remember eye drops 4 times per day for 7 days, oral antibiotic 2 times per day for 10 days (A) and ibuprofen every 4 hours (V). After going into the steamy bathroom, applying a vapor rub to their chests, suctioning their noses and putting drops in their eyes and medicine in their mouths, I can only hope that they sleep. Pobrecitos. V was so hot this am that he was twitching. Three hours after tylenol his fever was still over 102. I will be home with them tomorrow and they will stay home on Friday too. BT is closed Mon/Tues so after a 10 (V) and 12 (A) day break, I can only hope they will be back next Wednesday.
PS V only weighs 3 more ounces (20 lbs, 11oz) more than A. She got huge and/or he is a midget. What happened?

Pobrecitos

My quartet is sick, well three out of the four are. J has a horrible nagging cough that he does all night long, but that is the least of it. A went to the dr on Mon. No news. V went to daycare. A stayed home today, seemed a bit better, V went to daycare. V got sent home with a fever. And pink eye. In both eyes. A has it in one. A also had crap coming out of her ear, reminiscent of what J had a year back. I say burst ear drum. So for the third time in 8 days, A will be going to the doctor. I will cab it post my third grade class to meet L there. Might even bring J. I am very lucky to have this kind of flexibility in the day. V's face of suffering tonight, his hot, limp body asleep, naked right out of the bath, was just too sad. A also puts her head down on my shoulder when I hold her, a sure sign of her being unwell as she is never still. I cannot imagine what having really sick children is like. Just seeing them with this fever/horrible cold crap is heart wrenching. Please get better babies. Please say something useful doctors.

Confirmation

Toe broken. Time and money well spent at the doctor since he told me what I already knew with the added knowledge that it will take 6-8 weeks to heal. What a lovely way to possibly fuck up my back some more. Fun. Fun. Off to celebrate my good friend's engagement. Limping in the icy weather. Woo hoo!

On A Roll

I did not take babies to BT because I can hardly walk. I gave F a lunch bag with not enough milk for the day, including the last bag of frozen milk on earth- my milk that is. At 8:40 am I learned that one of the bottles spilled. Talk about crying over spilt milk- whoever coined that adage was surely referring to her own. The good news is that this incident catapulted me to acting on the plan I have been devising to use the babies (one as the control and the other as the test baby) as proponents of you do not have to be 12 months to drink cow's milk. I am starting that movement. A is the candidate and she will be drinking 3-4 oz of organic cow milk mixed with NYC water this afternoon. I will give it 24 hours and if she does not react we will proceed. V will be next of course if all goes well. I am beyond excited to retire this machine along with its soundtrack. As a footnote (ha ha), I called over ten doctors and they can either see me in a few weeks (useful) or out of network ($200-$400). Since we are talking about a toe and not a lung, I think I will ride this painful bs out. I hate doctors, insurance, and all that jazz.

6 Month Check Up

AleVit has grown! They each grew 1. 5 inches since their 4 month visit (wish I could get taller) and V is 16 lbs 12.5 oz and A 14 lbs 4 oz. Not bad. I need to sleep train these babies soon. This requires going to IKEA to buy a tall piece of furniture to replace the various short crappy ones in MoJo's room to make room for the crib, that F has to disassemble to get out of our room. You get the picture as to why we have been procrastinating. At this point the babies should be able to sleep 10 hours in a row. But they don't. I am thinking that if they cannot see, smell, and hear me two inches from their face, this will help. Summer is coming to a roaring halt and there is so much to do still! AleVit is being catapulted into BT life on Sept 7. I am sure I will be able to be at work and transitioning them into daycare at exactly the same time. WTF? Everything always overlaps. I will be coordinating childcare for MoJo and AleVit for a whole other month it looks like. Hope they do not cry too much when F rubs their shot spots. Pobrecitos.

Old School Twin

Yesterday we met a friendly man in his sixties on the beach. V was lunging for him, he took him in his arms, making him the first and only italian man to have held a baby. It turns out this man is a twin and he told us how he was born at home, his mother unaware that she had two babies in her. He and his brother weighed under three pounds each, and the midwife made an incubator out of a bedwarmer and towels. Who knows how long they stayed in there, but it reminded me how powerful nature and humans were, long before Dr. C and all that jazz.

Dying

I have some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning that led to serious problems during the night. How will I nurse, function etc without any fluid intake and so much output? I am taking small sips of water and hoping for the stomach churning to subside so I can do what I have to do (go to the dentist, pt, pack, have a camp meeting). Off to try to pump.

4 Month Check Up

Soo tired. But in case you were wondering, AleVit did great today. They screamed like maniacs as they got 3!! shots each. Pobrecitos. V weighs 14 lbs 1.5 ounces (50th percentile) and is 25 minches long (75th) and she is over 11 lbs 6.5 ounces (25th percentile) and 24 inches long (50th).  Both growing beautifully  More tomorrow.
Notte

Highway Robbery

Just got this bill in the mail:

Anesthesia February 8 $1,500. Your responsibility $1,500

Too bad I did not use any.

Fuck insurance companies and their constant scheming. While we are at it, fuck the MTA too for their AWFUL weekend service.
Love,
an un-anesthetized pedestrian