Musings of a Marfan Mom

May 27, 2010
by marfmom
10 Comments

Time Out!

Today I’m writing on Mama Kat’s Writers’ Workshop prompt #3: Who are you giving a timeout to?

Is it possible to give a Time out to time? If it is, I’d like to request that please.

See, I got sick on Saturday and only just started feeling better yesterday. This meant I haven’t gotten a lot accomplished. Yesterday I spent the entire day at the hospital: getting Menininho’s evaluation report (WHICH CAME IN THE FLIPPING MAIL THE SAME DAY, thanks for telling me!), having a ton of probably totally unnecessary blood tests for rare diseases (my OB is nothing if not cautious), getting my end-of-first trimester echo, meeting with my cardiologist, and having part of my echo redone because two techs working together couldn’t find my abdominal aorta. I didn’t get home till after 7 pm. Then it was dinner, American Idol, answering emails, folding laundry, answering questions about getting diagnosed with Marfan, trying to blog, and coming up with our packing list.

We’re taking a little trip this weekend, so today I need to: pack suitcases for Menininho and myself (and Mark, who am I kidding?), pick up my new prescriptions, learn the Boot Scootin’ Boogie, teach said line dance and a couple others to a group of unsuspecting 8-11 year old girls, run a few errands, do more SLP paperwork, and fill out my absentee ballot. There’s probably stuff I’m forgetting, like showering, but we all know that’s overrated.

So Time, if you could just take a break so I can accomplish everything I need to in the next 24 hours, that would be much appreciated!

* Please disregard the above request if you granting it would also mean that I have to continue listening to Meg Whitman is Satan/Steve Poizner eats babies commercials every 6 seconds on TV.

May 24, 2010
by marfmom
9 Comments

LOST and the OB Appt.

Ok first up? Let’s discuss LOST. Who else watched last night? Yep, I did the whole marathon…watching Jimmy Kimmel’s debriefing right now. Were you happy with the ending? I want to hear your theories! Leave them in the comments and let’s hash it all out!

Outside of that, I had my OB appointment on Wednesday. I still need to scan in the ultrasound pics, so I’ll try to post those on soon. Mark and the Menininho accompanied me, because one of my girlfriends told me it might help with sibling rivalry if he came to all my appointments and saw the ultrasounds.

I really liked the Maternal Fetal Specialist Fellow who did my ultrasound. My cardiologist told me there are only a couple of fellows at a time and they attend all the births, so I’m really hoping that she will be there for mine. At first she had a hard time finding the baby, so I was holding my breath there for a few minutes. Finally it appeared: “Your baby’s just kind of a smudge today, here’s the heartbeat!, but by the time you have your NT ultrasound in a couple weeks you’ll be amazed at how much you can see,” she said.

When she left to get my doctor, I turned to Mark and said, “the baby’s name is Smudge.” And he agreed.

I am liking the doctor himself a bit better now. He’s nothing if not thoughtful. He’s putting me on baby aspirin because he’s read papers that suggest it might help prevent pre-eclampsia from happening in subsequent pregnancies and since we don’t know if I had it last time, it makes sense to be cautious. Also? HE AGREED TO MOVE FORWARD WITH MY PLANS FOR A VBAC! This is really, really, good news for me. I know he doesn’t agree with it 100%, but I appreciate that he apparently respects me enough to allow me to make my own decisions about my body. Hopefully this keeps up.

Now, I’m still early in pregnancy and there’s a lot of time for things to change that would make a VBAC too risky, but for now I believe this is what I want. And in a future post, maybe next Monday, I’m going to outline my personal risks and benefits for a VBAC verse another c-section, because Dr. Pyeritz and Dr. Liang have said there are ZERO papers on VBACs in Marfan patients and I think it needs to be talked about. I told the OB he can write a case report on my VBAC if he wants. Was that wrong to offer? Haha.

I’ll leave you with a belly pic from last night (11 weeks)