Roslyn, Part 1: "Wicked Girl"
Friday, July 13th 2007
Yaaayyy, it's my birthday! Booooo, I have to go to work! But, that's okay: it's my last day of class, and really we're only talking about the students going through their music creation projects, a last listening quiz and a brief history of rock & roll ("Kiss is the greatest band ever. EVER. You there, in the third row...you wanna pass? Repeat after me...").
We also have tickets to see Wicked tonight at the Wharton Center. This will later cause us to shake our heads with wonder at our own stupidity: hindsight forced us to realize that we should have exchanged these tix MONTHS ago, way back when we realized the show was a mere 3 days prior to Tess' due date. But no matter: too late now, as the show is hopelessly sold out. Our plan is simple: head into E. Lansing for yet ANOTHER interminable NST (non-stress test) for the babe, then meet MY mother at a nearby shopping mall and drive over to meet TESS' parents for dinner. The show follows dinner, and perhaps we'll head to the hospital afterwards? Ahhhh, if only Fate would be so kind!
But...alas, no. Tess' ob/gyn practice, which is really a great place full of caring and nature-oriented doctors and nurses, has been putting Tess & Roslyn through tons of these NSTs for various reasons: low amnio fluid readings, slow baseline heart rate, and on & on. Tess & I occasionally clash about doctors & medical care in general: she's much more skeptical than I am, sometimes saying "Doctors just don't know anything about the body!" What I'm realizing is that sometimes doctors only know about levels of commonality when it comes to the body...and that anything outside a commonly-accepted range is "cause for concern", which translates to "Let's scare the shit out of the parents!" So it is with these NSTs: a low amnio reading could be 1) Roz has swallowed a lot of it and hasn't yet peed it out; 2) Roz is lying in such a way that she's smooshing all the fluid up against one side of the uterus, disallowing for an accurate reading; 3) her kidneys aren't functioning properly. Same thing with the baseline heart rate: the docs seem to think that a rate of 136-150 bpm is "normal," but Roslyn typically beats around 118-124. Ultimately, I think we're given too much information that doesn't have nearly enough in terms of irrefutable answers. Y'know, Tess & I both have our doctorates, so we generate a lot of questions in these appointments...enough to show us that sometimes the docs can't quite put a finger on why they're concerned...just that they ARE, because Rozzle is "outside the norm." Hmmm...sounds a lot like guesswork in a white lab coat to ME! Maybe Tess is onto something...
So, back to the point: we're sitting in the office, Tess strapped to the heartbeat and abdominal contraction monitors, when Roz's heartbeat suddenly dips down to around a 60, then only recovers to a ponderous 72. We waited long enough for me to open the door, whereupon we discovered the tech already on her way to us: "I see it, we picked up Mom's heartbeat by accident." Um...we DID? How did THAT happen?!? Said tech then proceeds to futz around with the heartbeat microphone, moving it this way and that over Tess' bulging belly, never getting anything but that slow-but-steady beat. FINALLY a doc comes in, announces that Roz has "failed" her NST, and says we should go over to triage (aka, the third floor of the hospital, where Roz will be born) so that we can undergo a much LONGER version of this selfsame test.
Fuck.
Now, instead of our relaxing night out - our LAST relaxing night out! - we have to scrounge up Tess' mom and ship her off to meet MY mom, and then BOTH can come meet us at the hospital. That ends up working okay, but we stay & stay & STAY at the hospital, listening anxiously to Roslyn's TOTALLY NORMAL heartbeat, the one we've been hearing all along, but still has the nurses & residents "concerned" because it's outside the range they consider normal. Fugh.
As it turns out, we're done at the hospital around 7:10pm...with an 8:00 curtain at the Wharton. Nope. Not happening...none of us have eaten, it'll easily take 30 minutes to navigate across town in lovely Friday evening traffic, plus we have to park, get to our seats...nope. Five tickets to the hottest show in town, down the fuckin' drain. Well, not exactly. Good friends Stephene & Kirsten have been "on-call" as emergency attendees, and they gratefully took three of the tix for themselves and a friend, leaving only two unused. It felt rather like a waste of several hundred dollars, but then again the tickets were PAID FOR at least a year ago, and we were all too emotional & worked up to even think about sitting through a show.
So we head for home, stopping for burgers & beer (not so much for Tess, y'know) at our fave local watering hole, then get home & collapse. Ah well...I'm sure Wicked will be back. In the meantime, we're closer than ever to the ACTUAL due date...whereupon I'm sure we'll discover that this is only the FIRST time that Roslyn will screw up our carefully-laid plans!
Yaaayyy, it's my birthday! Booooo, I have to go to work! But, that's okay: it's my last day of class, and really we're only talking about the students going through their music creation projects, a last listening quiz and a brief history of rock & roll ("Kiss is the greatest band ever. EVER. You there, in the third row...you wanna pass? Repeat after me...").
We also have tickets to see Wicked tonight at the Wharton Center. This will later cause us to shake our heads with wonder at our own stupidity: hindsight forced us to realize that we should have exchanged these tix MONTHS ago, way back when we realized the show was a mere 3 days prior to Tess' due date. But no matter: too late now, as the show is hopelessly sold out. Our plan is simple: head into E. Lansing for yet ANOTHER interminable NST (non-stress test) for the babe, then meet MY mother at a nearby shopping mall and drive over to meet TESS' parents for dinner. The show follows dinner, and perhaps we'll head to the hospital afterwards? Ahhhh, if only Fate would be so kind!
But...alas, no. Tess' ob/gyn practice, which is really a great place full of caring and nature-oriented doctors and nurses, has been putting Tess & Roslyn through tons of these NSTs for various reasons: low amnio fluid readings, slow baseline heart rate, and on & on. Tess & I occasionally clash about doctors & medical care in general: she's much more skeptical than I am, sometimes saying "Doctors just don't know anything about the body!" What I'm realizing is that sometimes doctors only know about levels of commonality when it comes to the body...and that anything outside a commonly-accepted range is "cause for concern", which translates to "Let's scare the shit out of the parents!" So it is with these NSTs: a low amnio reading could be 1) Roz has swallowed a lot of it and hasn't yet peed it out; 2) Roz is lying in such a way that she's smooshing all the fluid up against one side of the uterus, disallowing for an accurate reading; 3) her kidneys aren't functioning properly. Same thing with the baseline heart rate: the docs seem to think that a rate of 136-150 bpm is "normal," but Roslyn typically beats around 118-124. Ultimately, I think we're given too much information that doesn't have nearly enough in terms of irrefutable answers. Y'know, Tess & I both have our doctorates, so we generate a lot of questions in these appointments...enough to show us that sometimes the docs can't quite put a finger on why they're concerned...just that they ARE, because Rozzle is "outside the norm." Hmmm...sounds a lot like guesswork in a white lab coat to ME! Maybe Tess is onto something...
So, back to the point: we're sitting in the office, Tess strapped to the heartbeat and abdominal contraction monitors, when Roz's heartbeat suddenly dips down to around a 60, then only recovers to a ponderous 72. We waited long enough for me to open the door, whereupon we discovered the tech already on her way to us: "I see it, we picked up Mom's heartbeat by accident." Um...we DID? How did THAT happen?!? Said tech then proceeds to futz around with the heartbeat microphone, moving it this way and that over Tess' bulging belly, never getting anything but that slow-but-steady beat. FINALLY a doc comes in, announces that Roz has "failed" her NST, and says we should go over to triage (aka, the third floor of the hospital, where Roz will be born) so that we can undergo a much LONGER version of this selfsame test.
Fuck.
Now, instead of our relaxing night out - our LAST relaxing night out! - we have to scrounge up Tess' mom and ship her off to meet MY mom, and then BOTH can come meet us at the hospital. That ends up working okay, but we stay & stay & STAY at the hospital, listening anxiously to Roslyn's TOTALLY NORMAL heartbeat, the one we've been hearing all along, but still has the nurses & residents "concerned" because it's outside the range they consider normal. Fugh.
As it turns out, we're done at the hospital around 7:10pm...with an 8:00 curtain at the Wharton. Nope. Not happening...none of us have eaten, it'll easily take 30 minutes to navigate across town in lovely Friday evening traffic, plus we have to park, get to our seats...nope. Five tickets to the hottest show in town, down the fuckin' drain. Well, not exactly. Good friends Stephene & Kirsten have been "on-call" as emergency attendees, and they gratefully took three of the tix for themselves and a friend, leaving only two unused. It felt rather like a waste of several hundred dollars, but then again the tickets were PAID FOR at least a year ago, and we were all too emotional & worked up to even think about sitting through a show.
So we head for home, stopping for burgers & beer (not so much for Tess, y'know) at our fave local watering hole, then get home & collapse. Ah well...I'm sure Wicked will be back. In the meantime, we're closer than ever to the ACTUAL due date...whereupon I'm sure we'll discover that this is only the FIRST time that Roslyn will screw up our carefully-laid plans!
posted by Animal at 8:55 AM
2 Comments:
How very appropriate that this all occurred on Friday, the 13th. I'm sorry the educated idiots (oh, excuse me, "doctors") messed up your plans for the evening. Not to seem like Pollyanna or anything, but at least there was nothing wrong. It could have been much worse.
At the end when I was pregnant with Jamethan, I used to threaten daily to drive 60 mph down the railroad tracks and "shake the little sucker out". Just keep reminding yourselves that it will be over soon, and you'll have a precious bundle to snuggle in your arms.
We're WAAYYYY ahead of you, Jen! More to come...
;-)
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