Laughing because…what else can I do?

So… as many of you know, negotiations for the second kiddo commenced a while back. I’ve received many fabulous bottles of wine out of the deal, and many late Saturday and even Sunday mornings. It took us three solid months of “trying” before I got pregnant with Kendall, so I was expecting as much this time around. Imagine my surprise when last Sunday morning I woke at 6 am, queasy and 2 days late on only our 2nd cycle.

I quietly snuck out of bed, grabbed the lone leftover test from last month’s pee-on-a-stick-a-thon and discovered minutes later my urine produced 2 pink lines. The second wasn’t very dark, but definitely noticeable and not much lighter than the first one I got with Kendall. I hopped back in bed, abruptly woke Scott by shoving the stick in his face while saying, “Turn on the light. Are there TWO lines?” I’ve never been able to pull off the well executed reveal,  complete with pink and blue balloon release and encrypted map that leads to a bun in the oven.

We squealed in bed together, but it was obvious we both kept our level of excitement at bay… guarded a bit. It was really early. I promised myself I wouldn’t think too much about it until the end of the week, but quickly broke that promise by downloading various Iphone apps that tracked out each milestone for me and revealed the due date would be the week before Thanksgiving. I mean, could we have planned it any better?

Scott left for a week long business trip Monday morning. On Tuesday morning I started spotting.  Surprisingly, I wasn’t that alarmed by it. I spotted so much with Kendall in the 1st trimester I figured maybe that’s just my body’s way of dealing with pregnancy. By Wednesday morning it was much worse than I ever experienced with Kendall and I began to come to terms with this pregnancy not ending well. Really, I wasn’t that upset. I mean, I wasn’t happy. I was incredibly irritated and hormonal, but you know, now is SO much better than later.

Never having been through this before, I called the OB/MW office. They insisted I come in. That was at 11:30 on our way home from the bounce house for lunch. They wanted me in at 1:30. It’s a 30 minute drive from  here. It had already been a morning that tested my patience. Kendall, as of late, thinks it’s totally acceptable to hit random kids at the bounce house, which was all SORTS of fun. He was pissy, I was hormonal. I barely had time to make him something to eat while I frantically tried to fill out my insurance information online. Lo and behold, my insurance card was lost. Oh, it was one giant clusterfuck just trying to get out of the house. Then we drove 30 minutes only to end up at the building the office used to be in 4 years ago, thank you very much you DUMBASS GOOGLE. Then it took me another 20 minutes to find the correct location.

We arrived at the (seriously gorgeous) office nearly an hour late at 2:20. Did I mention Kendall normally naps from 1 to 4? And something odd happens to my kid when he skips a nap. He doesn’t become sleepy. He’s never been one to just fall asleep wherever he’s at. No, he becomes some sort of psycho, cracked out, hyperactive animal. This office looked like it could have been a spa, and here’s my kid, tearing the place apart. I was dizzy just trying to keep him from scaling the ornate tables to get to the intricate “wower” arrangements. Did I mention I didn’t have time to eat anything? Did I mention the whole nausea thing was still going strong? Since I was an hour late, they, understandably, had to make me wait so they could work me back into the schedule. It felt like an f-ing eternity. I know I got all kinds of “my kid will NEVER” looks from all the newly pregnant women. 

I had to give a urine sample,which was a whole new level of awkward and challenging with a toddler in the bathroom. I was literally holding the cup of pee over my head while my son pointed and shouted, “Juice!” He was trying to climb on my lap to reach the cup, I was trying to get my underwear back up without getting any bodily fluids on him or me. He played with the stack of clean cups, then reached for the Sharpie just as I was buttoning my pants.

We burst out of the bathroom, visibly unsettled, and the nurse called us back to the room. She went over my history with me, asked some questions, and pretty much told me what I already knew – that this was most likely not a viable pregnancy. Then she left me alone in the room with the table and the stirrups and lots of drawers full of off limits things and a toddler for what seemed like another f-ing eternity. When the nurse practitioner finally made it in, Kendall was playing with/chewing on two giant q-tips they use to swab vaginas. Clean, I promise. She told me she wanted to do an exam. I raised my eyebrows and looked over at Kendall as he chewed on the blown up glove she just handed him while running circles around the table.

“Do you think we could give him a lollipop?” she asked.

“I don’t care if you give him a bowl of sugar. Whatever you’ve got to keep him occupied for a minute. That would be great,” I replied.

Apparently, she took me seriously and came back to the room with two giant frosted sugar cookies.  Luckily, she also brought another nurse to use as a babysitter. At one point soon after, I’m laying there with my feet up in the stirrups, surely bleeding all over the place, and the NP asks the babysitternurse to hand her some stuff. Kendall takes the opportunity to walk over to the side of the table, look up at me, face covered in frosting, smile and say “Momma! Owie? Momma! Cookie?”

Wow… this is so not what I ever, ever thought would ever be a scene from my life.

“At least he has no idea what’s going on,” the nurse said. Yeah, at least. This was totally one of those moments in life that you have to laugh at, or else you’ll just fall apart and go crazy.

We left the room a complete and utter mess. I’m fairly certain they’re going to have to send the plush chair covers off to be dry cleaned to get all the green frosting off of them.

OH, and then I had to get blood drawn… with Kendall… in my lap. Luckily the tech was swift with the needle and he didn’t have any sudden movements at that very moment.

I’m going back in for a second blood draw tomorrow, and am so happy that a friend will be able to watch Kendall for me this time around. I guess we’ll just see where to go from here. Really, I wouldn’t know this to be any different from a late period if I hadn’t known to test as early as I did (just a little past 4 weeks, I think). So it’s not devastating or anything, just a bit annoying, I guess. But, 2 good things came from it. 1. I got to know my new OB/MW office very well, and am SUPER happy with them. They were so amazing with me and with Kendall. and 2. I got a tiny taste of pregnancy boobs for a few days, and momma liked it. Bring back the boobies!

Kendall is 22.5 months old

The hardest part about all of this was  not being able to blog about it! Things are so different this time around with TTC. This blog is no longer the anonymous sanctuary it once was, which leaves me trying to strike a balance between using this as the outlet I intended it for and keeping stuff private long enough for those close to me to find out from me and not my blog. To my friends and family that read this and may not know what happened, please understand. It’s not something I probably would have brought up with you right away anyway, but it does make a hilarious story now, and I’m sure I’d share it with you at some point over a glass of wine.

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50 Things to Do Before You Deliver: The First Time Moms Pregnancy Guide
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