B a b y B o u n d

As if spending Monday back in the depths of baby kill hell weren’t bad enough.  I got to spend the morning on the baby wing of the hospital.  The BABY wing.  The place where babies are born.  Where dad’s roam the halls with brand spanking new car seats to pick up their new kid and take them home - for the first time.  The place where old man doctors walk by an older couple and say “O there go Grandma & Grandpa!  You look so proud.”  The wing where all you see for miles and miles are baby bumps and anxious relatives.  Waiting rooms of people all happier than I will ever be.

The us showed nothing.  Just a lot of blood.  Clots.  A uterus, 2 ovaries and a bladder were all present and accounted for.  Apparently my uterus leans to the left a bit.  Good to know?

They’re sending these results to Doc Vagarnicle and I should be expecting a phone call in the next 2 days to go over next steps.  They seemed pretty puzzled today.  Might be because when they usually use that thing at the BABY hospital it shows a little person on the screen and all we saw was an empty house.  Vacant for    ever.   (Cue the tumbleweed and the wind)  I have no answers yet.  I have been informed that something is definitely wrong, but until we have the blood results, nothing is conclusive.  So.  We wait.  I bleed.  You listen.  No change.

I guess if I was to try to find an upside to any of this fantastic disaster it would be that on my way out, an OB asked me if I was there visiting a new mommy (ooouuuucccchhh).  I said no that I just had an us.  He looked me up and down with a confused look on his face so before he could punish himself by uttering words, I spoke up and said “I’m not pregnant.  I’m hemraging.”  He then said “O ok.  I have learned over the years to never ask a woman if she’s pregnant”…and we left it at that.  How is this an upside???  Well, at least he didn’t think I was pregnant when we first met.  I can put away those fat jeans.

I guess I really should finish blogging it out and really get the good stuff out. The stuff that is actually upsetting me more than the fruit salad - although let’s face it, that pretty much sucks a lot.

I have some sort of new found fear of the gyno office. I wasn’t aware of it, until it dawned on me that I haven’t actually been back to see Doc Vagarnical in 1 year AND waited 3 months to actually deal with my womanly incontinence. Makes sense to those of you praying to remain childless, but anyone seeking motherhood - especially having trouble in this department - that is just a ridiculously long amount of time. I have not been back there since Ashley was vacuumed out of my baby house. 1 quick follow up appointment to make sure they got all of her - and make sure I spend the rest of my life knowing it was a she - and I have been vag cam free for a full year.

I didn’t really think much of this. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I was wrong. I was o so very wrong. Stupid BabyBound.

It all started right at the front door. A line of pregnant woman waiting at the bathroom door to pee in cups. Ouch. That stung a bit, but I’m better than that. Suck it up BB. Suck. It. Up.

Yeah ok. I can do this. I am strong. I have been through worse. Right?

That is….until I’m taken back to the room where all the magic happens. The baby sucking room. The room where my baby briefly called home in a glob of goo sucked into a jar. (is that dramatic enough for you?) As I sat there half naked waiting for the doc, it was all I could do not to burst into tears and/or tinker with the vagina vacuum. This was way harder than I had planned for. And here I am, something clearly wrong with me again, right back at square one. Wow I sure do bleed a lot in this room don’t I? Perhaps the most obvious solution would be to avoid this room altogether?

The nurse walked in and asked “so you’re still bleeding after the proceedure?” Umm…well yeah I guess technically she was correct? But I think those 8 months in between should probably be accounted for. O and thanks for bringing that up btw.

Then as I continued to wait, the room next to me started to beat. Kinda loudly. Like, this place has the worst insulation in all the land and sea. The room next to me contained a doctor, 1 mom to be, 1 dad to be and 1 baby to be. Listening to their baby’s heartbeat for the very first time, the mom and dad were elated, crying, happy, and I pretty much hated them.

O sometimes I just love the irony. And in true BabyBound fashion, I decided that they stole the heart of my baby. Fuck those assholes. Give it back! I wondered if it would be inappropriate to ask them if I could have their baby? I’d trade? I mean sure, mine has to live in a jar for life and probably wont ever say da da, but common, I had that heart first.

Tomorrow I’ll know more about my insides. Making sure they’re all still there. Hopefully I’ll have some sort of answers that don’t include: surgery, cancer, permanent infertility, “you have 2 months to live”, “your mother is here”…. Stay tuned.

OK. It’s time to blog it out.

I haven’t exactly been upfront with info on my lady bits lately. There’s been plenty goin on down there, but rather than admit to myself that there might be a problem, I’ve been avoiding any and all mention thus far. That, unfortunately, includes my blog.

But BabyBound, isn’t this the entire purpose of this blog? Like, didn’t you start writing it for the sole purpose of telling the world about your vagarnicle and all its bad baby making habits?

Well kinda, but frankly, sometimes it gets old to hear about a bloody hooha that wont stop and I think I hit that mark months ago. Really. Its simply not that interesting to tell the same damn aunt flo story over an over. We get it. She’s here. She wont go away. Enough already.

Well, while this tactic might delay the inevitable “fuck I think I need to see a doc about this” for a bit, it obviously had an expiration date. That date was yesterday. After 3 months of flo, I had to go to the vagina doctor and see a vag cam about a picture if ya know what I’m sayin and I know you do.

Blood was drawn.  Legs were spread.  Fingers…ok let’s just stop right there.  Nothing is conclusive yet.  US was ordered.  Apparently there isn’t anything obviously wrong with me.  Just cause bleeding for 3 months straight, heavily, with no breaks and fruit salad seems odd, it doesn’t mean it is.  Duh BabyBound.  In fact, doc says I could be pregnant.  Well, clearly I’ll be seeing second doc tomorrow because this one is obviously blind and unable to read my 7,000 page chart.  Maybe she just couldn’t lift it?

Pregnancy is not only downright impossible, it makes absolutely no sense when someone is bleeding out their entire body through their nether regions.  I mean that’s pretty much the opposite of pregnancy.  Like, the exact opposite.  I get it.  Some people have regular periods throughout pregnancy.  That is not the same thing.  But surely thank you for even uttering that word in my presence while speaking to me so that I could go home and cry all night.  Thanks a bunch.  Why don’t you tell me I’m fat too.  O and ugly.

Going to get an us tomorrow morning.  Hoping to see a little devil man in there laughing and throwing blood on his Pollock rendition.  Please don’t be anything more serious or I might freak out.  No really.  Please.

Hmm, Mark and I have been hunting for a new painting in the entry….

More to come on the subject…as well as the lovely experience of being back in the baby sucking d&c room.

Just call me Pinky Enamel Sunset. Er. Or Don’t.

See, the thing is, we have this awesome fireplace in our awesome new house that is probably 70 years old and has NEVER been used which is pretty awesome. Awesome.

The fireplace surround has clearly been painted over for each trend of the decades and just out of pure curiosity, I really wanted to see what was under all that 50’s pink, 60’s orange, 70’s green, and 80’s mauve. Well, not so much my curiosity rather it was my Perfect Aunt who planted that little number into my brain. And as we all know, plant something in BabyBound’s head and you’re bound to get some sort of anal retentive, neurotic mess of an obsession to follow.  Cue the odd head shaking and the brain full of running hamsters please.

So for shiggles, I stripped it this weekend.  And just cause I know you want to ask, no.  I did not take it to dinner first.

Jesus. Anyone strip paint before? While its a fucking butt load of work that can easily cause you to wake up the next morning with the claw for hands, its pretty much as fun as peeling dead skin of a sunburn. Really. Its that fun.

What did I find? Was it some historical marble tiles? Gold flecked mirror? Intricately carved artwork? Ancient Indian cave carvings?!?!?!  No.  I found plaster.  White.  Plaster.

Well, so maybe my stripping adventures didn’t turn out fruitful.  Yeah, and maybe the conversation that followed sounded a lot like “what color should we paint it now”, but whatever.  Its not every day that you can wake up the next morning and beg for a hand massage by whining about the claw.  I say mission accomplished.

For anyone expecting something witty to come out, please find the nearest television set and turn to comedy central.  Hopefully you’ll be blessed with a zinger, because I don’t think its gonna happen in the next 387 words (or so) from BabyBound.

I got a call from my mother last night.  It wasn’t a bad call.  She was actually doing something nice.  She wanted to let me know that my grandparents will be moving into assisted living next Tuesday because they are no longer able to take care of themselves.  My Grandma was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and is very rapidly losing her memory of everything.

My mother wanted to make sure that I knew about this because she wanted me to have the choice of what I wanted to do.  She told me that it would probably be a good idea to plan on spending some time with her in the next could of weeks because I probably need to say my goodbyes.  She will not remember me soon.  My mother said that if I wanted to do it alone - so that it didn’t have to be about the problems I’m having with my parents, then she would be happy to help arrange it and promised to stay away.  But that she didn’t want me to have to regret anything later on.  She was giving me a choice.

She also told me that they will be selling my Grandparent’s house and that they will be getting rid of everything.  She is putting aside my chair (this super cool designer chair that I have always wanted) and that if there is anything else that I want, to let her know and she will make sure I get it.  That this situation between me and them should not have any effect on me and my Grandparents.

Wow.  So much to take in.  It’s kinda like when you get in a car accident and forget how to open the door because of the shock of it.  I’m a bit blank.  So much has just happened that I don’t even know where to begin.  What my first step should be.  Obviously I am incredibly happy that I wasn’t left out of this and that I am being given the chance to actually say goodbye.  I will absolutely take it.  I don’t want to morn someone that isn’t dead, but with this, I get it.

The last time I saw my Grandma, she didn’t remember who I was for the first 20 minutes of seeing me.  It was unbelievably hard.  She had a blank stare on her face that I wont forget, but its not what I think of when I think of her.  At least I try not to.  Right now, its all I can’t think of.  In some ways, that makes this all a bit scarier because I know that’s how it will be this time.

Its just hard.  But I really do have to say, thank you Mom.  You may have actually changed.