Letter to Bean and Ramblings

Oh little Bean, you are already 4 weeks old. There are many days when I debate adding an "o" to the end of your pseudonym. Why? Because of the surprising, staccato bursts of sound which issue from both ends of your maturing digestive tract. Your other affectionate nickname is Vladimir, as in Vladimir "Pootin'". Yes, your parents are corny, may as well accept that now! Seriously, though you have got to be the gassiest baby I have ever the great fortune to know. And the sheer volume of solid waste that you manufacture on a daily basis? Impressive, my friend, especially for a breast fed baby. There is never any doubt of when you need to be changed, because we can hear you fill your diaper from across the room! I can't believe that I used to fret about your sisters weekly movements, only now to fret that there is nary a diaper change that you aren't at least a little dirty. You are the sweetest little man, though, so laid back. Every time you fuss, there is a solution. You can even fall asleep all on your own! This amazes me. You are also so serious, it takes a lot to get you to crack a smile; however, you are very chatty, cooing and squeaking all day long. I am treasuring this ever dwindling time with you, cuddling you when you sleep on my chest. Too soon you'll be "all grown-up," just like your big sister.



It's been a trying week in Whoo-ville. Last Friday I was practically in tears I felt so horrible, but I had no idea why...until I spiked a temp. Then the vague aching in my left breast took on a more significant role than an after-effect of overaggressive pumping. I had the fantastic luck of getting a rip-roaring case of mastitis. Fortunately for me, I could call in my own antibiotics. Unfortunately, I got really sick really fast. At one point my temp was up to 104.7, and Mr. Whoo was on the brink of forcibly carting me to the ER (I'd really have to be dying to go to the ER!) I knew I was on the correct meds, but when I was on my 24th hour of spiking temps, I must admit I had visions of MRSA dancing in my head. I defervesced sometime between Saturday and Sunday, and I'm still taking antibiotics. The illness took a lot out of me, and I was feeling pretty wiped out until yesterday, when the next great thing happened, we lost power.


Big deal, right? The loss of power in our particular section of the neighborhood occurs approximately every 15 days, and is out for 8-10 hours at a time. The frustrating part is that it is only our street. The other houses in our neighborhood, including the street over never lose power, so this puts us low on the priority list to have power restored. The first winter snowstorm that we had when we moved in resulted in power loss for 3-4 *days*, forcing us to move ourselves and (our then 18 month old) CindyLou into a hotel. When your power is out this long, you are forced to throw hundreds of dollars of food away, and spend your nights either sweltering or freezing cold, oh, and no cooking because the stove is electric as well. Throw in a 3 year old and a newborn and 10 hours of power loss in the middle of the night is just not ideal. We sweat our way through the night, CindyLou came into our bed because her nightlight was out, and Bean wouldn't nurse in the total dark, so we had a flashlight sitting upright on the bedside table, which woke up CindyLou, Bean was too hot to sleep on me, but wouldn't sleep in his bed, either. Mr. Whoo and CindyLou eventually moved to her room and Bean and I stripped the covers from the bed and rested, albeit fitfully, throughout the night. The following morning, poor Mr. Whoo had to go to work. I kept CindyLou home with me, which may have been insane, now that I look back...no sleep and keeping and active toddler entertained all day? Not the wisest of moves.

My hat is off to all of you stay at home mothers out there, especially those with multiple children. It was exhausting trying to keep up with all of the demands of both children. At one point, CindyLou decided that she wanted corn for lunch. Once I was able to detach Bean from the breast long enough to fix her lunch, I complied (I thought) with her request, and opened a can of corn. Oh no, it was meltdown time! You see, she wanted corn in a *line* (ie. corn on the cob) not a bowl! By the time I had her calmed down and eating the much maligned bowl of corn, the Bean had audibly filled his diaper, then CindyLou needed to go to the potty, then Bean needed to eat...so on and so forth. Mr. Whoo came home to CindyLou planted firmly in front of her portable DVD player with a movie, the house in utter disarray, and me catatonic on the couch with Bean sleeping on my lap. Mother of the year, I am not. That day did cement in my mind that I do not have what it takes (patience, aplomb, creativity, a will of iron, etc.) to stay home with kids. I think they would be miserable and I would be certifiable. This is a small thing to hold onto as my re-entry into the work fray draws ever closer. *sigh* I have more to post on that at a later date.

I believe that I have rambled long enough for now, my poor sleep deprived brain doesn't know when to stop the literary diarrhea. Maybe it is related to lack of adult interactions during the day? I'll spare you more painful minutiae for today. Thanks for all of your comments, I am reading and posting them when I can, and I appreciate everyone's advice!

3 Weeks Old and Searching for a Routine

Oh, who am I kidding? We definitely have a routine, it just isn't the most productive routine. My life is incredibly boring right now, a far cry from my usual life, so if you snooze easily you may want to skip this post. My days since all the company left have shaken out something like this:

7am - 8am CindyLou barges into the room, wakes me if I'm sleeping, ignores me if I'm not, and searches immediately for Mr. Whoo. Mr. Whoo and CindyLou get ready for work and school as per as normal routine as they can manage. (Yes, she is still in school, especially this week while I am adjusting to being alone with the Bean), we are trying to keep her life as normal as possible and not to break routine.) It goes without saying that sometime during this period we are nursing, changing diapers, etc.

8am-10am - Variably spent napping, nursing, and lazing about in bed with the Bean. We have mastered side-lying nursing, which I highly recommend for maximum sleep. When I'm not sleeping, I am composing the day's to-do list in my mind. You see, I *have* to be productive if I'm staying home.

10am-1pm - The Bean's usual morning "awake" period. I have managed to shower (once) during this time and at the very least am able to attend to some basic self-care like the brushing of teeth, changing of clothes, using the bathroom, and even, sometimes, eating! I can usually entertain the Bean with the bouncy seat or swing while I attend to basic personal needs, and sometimes I am even able to get some chores done. It is this time of day that I am usually contemplating on writing/typing out a to do list. It is day 4 of this not happening yet. Nursing happens toward the end of this time period to put the Bean into a "milk coma."

1pm- 3pm - The Bean is sleeping. I'm finding it very hard to put him down when he sleeps because he is oh so very snuggly and sweet. I usually will compromise and hold him for a bit before putting him down and working on the day's to-dos and, more likely, surfing the internet.

3pm-5pm - I eat my second lunch because I am hungry *all* of the time. This is probably why my weight loss has plateaued this week. Then there is dinner planning, chores, nursing, and napping (both Bean and myself). Did I mention that I am a rotten housewife?

5pm-8pm - Mr. Whoo and CindyLou come home. We have dinner, a little play time, CindyLou has her bath, if I haven't showered, I get a shower, and CindyLou goes to bed. Mr. Whoo gets some Bean time, and Bean sometimes will have a little fussy period at this time.

8pm- 11pm - It is nurse-a-thon time. The Bean is at the breast every hour, cluster feeding like crazy, drifting into light sleep, awaking and nursing again. Once he is sated, we both tend to pass out on the couch until Mr. Whoo rousts us up to go to bed.

11pm - 2am - My blissful, longest sleep period of the day.

2am - Nursing, diaper changing, dozing, watching Disco.very Health, TLC, Brav.o, and WE. I even saw my own OB on one of the "Special Delivery" shows on Discovery Health. Awesome.

4am- Nursing, diaper changing, dozing, watching only Disco.very Health or one of the news channels because all of the rest of the cable channels turn to infomercials after 3 am.

*Aside* Let me just say that DH and TLC need some more commercial sponsors, or at the very least, they need to run different commercials for the same shows. Some of their commercials are burned into my subconscious - The Last Days of Diana (where they have made some kind of dirge out of "Modern Love." Mightily depressing.) and Diagnosis X (where there is an equally depressing snippet of song playing over and over in my head.) I am also convinced that the lead singer from Cake is the vocalist for the Coc.oa Krispi.es "cereal straws" jingle. That's just *sad* y'all.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Why yes, I *am* slowly losing my mind, why do you ask? I am having a hard time putting the baby down to sleep 1) because he doesn't sleep very well on his back 2) he sleeps great on his tummy, but I can't sleep worrying about SIDS 3) the kiddo is a very noisy breather, squeaking, squawking, and snoring (I have made the totally non-professional diagnosis of laryngomalacia) making me think that he is awake when he is not, and 4) selfishness, he's only going to be this little and cuddly once. This results in me sitting semi-reclined in bed, propped up on pillows, with Bean sleeping on my chest.

Yes, I *know* this isn't the best arrangement. Actually, I slept with CindyLou this way for the first 6 weeks of her life due to her horrible reflux, but we slept out on the couch, not in the bed. I am attempting to get the Bean to sleep on his back during his daytime naps in preparation of trying to get him down at night. It's sad that I get better sleep with him on me than in his own bed.

I'm trying desperately not to think that my maternity leave is just about half over (sob!) because right now I'm just not ready to go back to that chaos. I am seriously considering cutting my schedule as much as I can and cutting back deliveries for a while until we adjust to the two child family. There is nothing I can do about the call, unfortunately. Also looming on the horizon is the Oral Boards. Argh. I don't even want to think about this. Thank you all for your congratulations and compliments on the Bean. You guys are the best, and I promise that I will get back to more witty, interesting posts as I become more witty and interesting. I am starting to think this is directly proportional to the amount of continuous sleep that I get. Back to the laundry for now....

The Delivery (Long and unnecessarily descriptive...consider yourself warned!)

Eeek. Sorry guys, for leaving you hanging for so long. I fully intended to post this post later the same day, but life got in the way. I guess the picture kind of gives away the ending, huh?

Ok, so where were we? Oh yes, it turned out to be a very good thing that I had packed my bag prior to my office visit. I, however, was fully convinced that since I had the foresight to pack the bag, it would not be needed, as is often the case in my life. My mom and I stopped for lunch at the Oliv.e Gard.en, a rare treat for me as the restaurant is in UniversityCity, about 40 minutes north of MyTown. Then it was on to the office where I had the great news of gaining 5 pounds (and I only had soup and salad at the restaurant!) in the past 4 days, a BP of 150/90, and trace protein in the urine. On recheck the BP went back down to 130/72, and there was no question that I had mild preeclampsia and needed to deliver, there was merely the question of when to do it. I had an ultrasound which showed good fluid, an estimated fetal weight of 8 pounds 10 ounces, and a very, ahem, mature looking placenta. My cervix had actually become more favorable changing from closed/thick/high to 2cm/50%/ -2 station. My OB was on call on Friday 7/20 and I liked the date of 7/20/07, so we "set the date." Then it was time for my NST, where we found that the Bean had other ideas. He was having spontaneous, repetitive variable decelerations in his heart rate, and I thought my heart would stop every time his slowed down, because I wasn't even having contractions yet. Sometimes it sucks to know too much. In between the variables, his heart rate was reactive with fantastic variability, and he was moving all over the place. It was apparent that the Bean had designs on a different birthday other than the one that I had planned. The decels were the last straw, arrangements were made for my induction to begin immediately...and I was scared.

Mr. Whoo went to pick up CindyLou at daycare and leave her with SuperNurse, and also to go home to pack a bag for himself. My mother stayed with me while I got checked into Labor and Delivery. It took some time to get into the room and to be assessed by my nurse because the unit, I could tell, was extraordinarily busy. It was about 6 pm before the pitocin was started. My admission labs, apparently, were starting to bump, as well, and somehow I was able to talk my OB out of magnesium as long as my pressures were stable and I was asymptomatic. They placed me on high dose pitocin, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't feel a thing. I was contracting every 2 minutes, and I didn't feel them at all. It was bizarre. His heart rate remained fairly stable. He did have occasional variables that I could hear, but the monitor was in the cabinet next to my bed, so I could not easily see it (frustrating, but probably by design!) Once the nurse and all of the residents came running into the room together, which is never a good sign, and he was having late decelerations for a period of time. I was a measly 3 cm dilated. The possibility of C-section was seriously discussed, but luckily kiddo decided to straighten up and behave himself with reposition and oxygen.

Around midnight the contractions were starting to not only register but hurt like a mother. My mantra for this delivery was that I had wanted the epidural placed before my membranes ruptured, because with CindyLou they ruptured when I was only fingertip dilated and man, did contractions hurt worse after that happened. I requested the epidural shortly after midnight, but, since my bloodwork was "borderline" I needed an updated platelet count prior to anesthesia blessing me with their presence. Once that was drawn, I knew I wouldn't be able to hold it long enough to have the foley placed, so I wagged myself and my IV to the bathroom. Once I used the bathroom, I couldn't help but think about how my water broke in the bathroom with CindyLou, all over the slippers I was currently wearing. I'm not sure how that visualization affected my body, but as I got ready to leave the bathroom a contraction hit. I held onto the IV pole to breathe and sway through that contraction when, with a pop and a gush, my membranes ruptured all over my slippers...again. "Um, guys?" I called from the bathroom, "My water just broke." The nurses laughed at my puddles as I schlepped back to the bed. Dammit if the contractions didn't start hurting worse, just as I had feared. I think I waited another 30-45 minutes for anesthesia, and even though the resident didn't have the warmest or fuzziest bedside manner, I was ecstatic to see her. I warned her that in my previous delivery, the anesthesiologists had a very difficult time placing my epidural and had mentioned something about small spaces between my vertebrae. She totally blew me off and proceeded to speak to me as though I were mentally deficient. Ok, whatever. She was soon singing a different tune once she felt my intravertebral spaces. She struggled for another 20-30 minutes, grudgingly admitted that I *did* have small spaces, and, mercifully, successfully started the epidural. As unpleasant as her personality may have been, her epidural worked like a dream, and for that, I was grateful.

It was beyond strange to touch the bottom half of your body and for it to not feel like your own. The pain from the contractions was totally gone, but I still had a bit of "pins and needles" feeling at the periphery, almost like my body was lying on a flat board and I could only feel part of it. My OB came in around 1:30 am, placed an IUPC and delivered the utterly depressing news that I was 4cm/100% effaced/0 station. I had been hopeful that I'd progressed farther in proportion to the pain I was feeling. It turns out I'm just a big puss. I tried to settle in for a few hours of sleep, and made the mistake of pressing my bolus button. Immediately I knew something was wrong because the bolus went on for-ever. The medicine just kept going and going. I rang for the nurse to let her know, but by the time she made it to the room, the bolus was in...too late to do anything. Within 5 minutes my pressure was 90/50, I was shaking uncontrollably, and kiddo's heart rate took a dive. What followed was kind of a blur, because I felt seriously out of it, but I know I got ephedrine, 3 liters of fluid, oxygen, and flipped side to side to side. At last the pressure stabilized, and I was then too scared to try to sleep. I positioned myself so that I could see the monitor and waited.

Around 4 am I started to feel the tiniest bit of pressure, but nothing overwhelming, so I continued chatting with Mr. Whoo. Close to 5 am I was really not feeling any more pressure than I had an hour ago, but I knew shift change was coming up and I was curious to know how much progress I had made. The resident came in to check and informed us that the baby was about to fall out (!!!!) Whoa! I was expecting 7 or 8 at the pace I had maintained previously. Since I wasn't feeling an overwhelming urge to push, they took a bit of time to get the table (and later I found out they had a 33 weeker moving back to the OR to deliver, as well) and get organized. My OB was there, but I had consented that the intern could deliver if he was close by and did any sewing/operative delivery that needed to be done. (Seriously, it was mid-July, people!) I think that I pushed for 3 contractions, about 10 minutes, and baby Bean Whoo came into the world at 5:33 am on July 19th. He weighed 7#4 oz. and was 19 inches long (the exact same measurements as his sister, so much for late trimester ultrasound measurements!) and had a double nuchal cord to account for most of his misbehavior. Oh, and he is gorgeous and perfect (of course!) After delivery my blood pressure improved significantly, and I have already lost all of my pregnancy weight. Unfortunately I have 40 extra pounds to go, but I am hoping that breastfeeding will give me a head start on that.

Bean is now 2 weeks and 3 days old. He is a sweet boy, very relaxed and laid back. He pretty much eats, sleeps, and soils diapers. He also is having more alert periods where he contemplates the world seriously and quietly. He rarely fusses, which is so different from CindyLou, who was (in comparison) extremely high maintenance. I'm not getting more than 2-3 hours of sleep at a stretch thanks to breastfeeding, but it seems easier this time around. We shall see as time goes on. Today we just said goodbye to the last of the company/help for a few weeks, so I'll see how well I will fare on my own. CindyLou loves her baby brother and seems to be adjusting very well. I find that my patience with her is shorter than it should be, and I'm trying not to be so impatient with her. I want to thank you all for checking in on us and for all of your great support and comments! I will do my best to update when possible, but forgive me if I don't respond to comments individually for a while. It is almost time to open the dairy bar for lunch, so have a great Sunday and I'll check in soon!

Catching Up

Sorry to disappear from the blogosphere for such a long time. I've just been a wee bit busy here. When I posted last, my partner was off on vacation, I was on call, and my blood pressure was teetering on the borderline. I made it through the first week of OtherDoc's vacation relatively unscathed. I had lots of clinic patients, but the deliveries remained somewhat manageable. I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty drug out and worn down. (Wonder why?) At my 38 week appointment, my OB was on vacation as well, so I saw another physician in the practice. My pressure was 148/89, my cervix was closed (surprise) and my NST looked great. I got the lecture about taking it easy (yeah, right) and I had to repeat the dreaded labs and 24 hour urine protein. I saved that joy for the weekend. I collected on Saturday and turned it in on Sunday when I went in to round on patients.

I'm not sure if this is a coincidence or not, but on Sunday I admitted and delivered a severe HELLP patient of mine. She had no preeclampsia, only HELLP, and she got really sick really fast. She came in complaining of upper abdominal pain. Her labs were just mildly bumped at that time, but she was term with a favorable cervix, so we began Mag Sulfate and started the induction immediately. Luckily she delivered within a couple of hours. Then the fun with labs started, her liver enzymes soared as her platelets plummeted. The platelet count nadir was around 40,000, just shy of needing a platelet transfusion. Luckily, with the help of Dexamethasone, she turned the corner and recovered very quickly. She was able to go home on her 3rd day post-partum. Later that day I checked my own labs. No signs of HELLP, but my 24 hour urine protein was solidly in the mild preeclampsia range. Knowing that my time was limited, and in anticipation of having the smackdown at my Wednesday afternoon appointment, I attempted to stack my schedule for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning.

Monday was an absolute blur, lots of clinic patients, charts, and 3 inductions, not to mention my sick HELLP patient. I was waiting on a delivery (around 5:30) when I got a phone call from my physician at labor and delivery. Uh-oh. It turns out that he had been looking for my labs, and when he saw the 24 hour urine protein, he was compelled to find me and tell me to stop working...pronto, and to pick a day for induction. Eeek. I immediately flashed on how sick my patient had gotten in such a short time, and I knew that it was time to start taking care of me. He sounded like he meant business, so I immediately called the back up covering physician, who was wonderful and told me not to worry about him covering my patients, even though I had stacked inductions and sections for the next few days. I then made out an extensive check out list and did the final delivery ( a rather difficult vacuum, at that). Then I went to see my patients that I had scheduled for induction and explained that I had been pulled from work by my own physician and would not be attending their deliveries. Then I cried, in front of the patients, and felt like an idiot. Both women were very understanding. I finally got home around 11pm, cried some more, and felt like the weight of the world had finally been removed from my shoulders. Tuesday I did absolutely nothing but sit and catch up on my patients via computer. Wednesday I (finally) packed my hospital bag and prepared to go to my appointment. Little did I know how important that would be....

To be continued...

The Home Stretch

It seems as though, in these last few weeks of pregnancy, I should be surging toward the finish line with my last burst of energy...stretching forward and extending further than ever I have before. In actuality, I find myself barely limping (literally, stupid sciatic nerve pain) along, dragging my feet, and procrastinating the whole way. I haven't packed my hospital bag. The nursery really isn't ready. I'm really not mentally prepared for this new arrival, and yet I find myself hoping that he's getting here sooner than later!

Sorry for the long silence, but as per usual, I've been busier than ever at work and at home. I am covering call for my partner, as he is taking his annual 2 week long vacation (if this doesn't put me into labor, I'm not sure what will). We've had visitors for the last 3 weekends in a row, and while wonderful, it has been exhausting. I wanted to thank each and every one of you for all of your helpful comments, well wishes, and hints about flipping my stubborn breech baby! I promise, I've not been holding these comments hostage, rather, I've just not had a chance to get them all published until today. First of all, I did check the website to find it to be the same one I've directed patients toward in the past, I did do the knee-chest reposition manueuvers, the inclines were just too much blood rushing to my face, and I didn't have immediate access to a swimming pool deep enough in which to do handstands (without embarrassing myself at the public pool by having my stubbly legs waving about in the air, that is), but I did suspend my belly between two rafts in my daughter's oversized wading pool. I did not do moxibustion. I wasn't really sure where to get the candles and wasn't certain enough about the technique to order them from the internet. I barely have time to make my own OB appointments, so seeing a chiropractor was not a real possiblity, although I do have patients that have had success in this arena. As far as visualization/hypnosis stuff, I think it ended up more like begging, pleading, and cajoling the Bean...pleeeeaaaassssseeee turn around, c'mon, I'll buy you a pony, etc. The fact of the matter is, I don't think any of the traditional techniques had one iota of influence on my stubborn child. The evening before my second ultrasound, I could palpate his hard head right below my ribcage, and I had resigned myself to making the decision for version or elective section (because I am too a'skeered of the risks associated with vaginal breech births). Then, my 20 pound girlcat took matters into her own paws. She leaped upon my belly, positioning herself directly over the caput of my stubborn son, and proceeded to activate her very loud purrbox. She hatched my belly and purred for about an hour, and boy, did the baby respond! He wriggled and kicked like crazy, it was, at times, almost painful, but after that hour, I could no longer feel his head in my upper belly. The ultrasound the following day confirmed that I had, indeed, had a successful cephalic version via kitty, and vertex he has remained ever since. So much for traditional methods of flipping breech babies! If I were to try to rationalize why this worked when nothing else did, I guess I could say that it is close to vibroacoustic stimulation like we use to "wake up" sleeping babies on non-stress tests. Who knows? All I know is that he is now vertex, and getting way too chubbly (hopefully) to turn back around now.

As for his estimated weight, a good 7 pounds as of a little over a week ago, of course I'm taking it with a grain of salt. The limitations of ultrasound in predicting weight accurately in the third trimester are not lost on me, but what woman doesn't cringe a bit thinking about the possibility that, indeed, the measurement is closer to correct than not, or, worse still, is off by a pound in the positive direction? I'm trying not to think about it too much and trying to trust that I don't feel like I'm carrying an almost 8 pound kid at this point. We shall see. My BP has been holding steady 140s/80s, no protein, normal labs. I even lost a pound this week. (Whee!) This next week, we are going to try to take professional belly/family photos, so I must find some inoffensive similarly colored shirts for Mr. Whoo, CindyLou, and me. We have a to-do list a mile long. I thank you all once again for checking in on me and all of the encouragement. Now I must get into the hospital to round (I've started to deliver some patients whose due dates are *after* mine, and there is very little in my life as an OB/GYN that is more discouraging than that!), continue to wash baby clothes, and maybe, just maybe, pack my own hospital bag. Just like a real pregnant person.

The Good News and The Bad News

Today I had my OB appointment and my (long awaited) second ultrasound. The reviews were mixed.

The good news:
We have a beautiful, healthy, perfectly angelic looking baby growing and thriving inside. (All bias aside, we got a glimpse of his face with the 3D scanner and he is gorgeous.)

The bad news:
He's breech and near the 90th percentile of size for dates.

The good news:
My 24 hour urine protein was below the range for mild pre-eclampsia.

The bad news:
(TMI alert) I produce so much urine in a 24 hour period that I filled the collection jug to capacity and was unable to capture my last two voids. (I knew I went a lot but this is ridiculous! That jug is frigging huge!)

The good news:
My OB thinks I may be a candidate for an external version.

The bad news:
But that is subject to change if this kiddo continues to grow to gargantuan proportions.

The good news:
I don't seem to have pre-eclampsia, yet.

The bad news:
I definitely have gestational hypertension (146/90 today) and may have to repeat the 24 hour urine study in the not so distant future.

The good news:
I may soon be able to tell my patients what it is like to have both a vaginal delivery and a C-section.

The bad news:I may soon be able to tell my patients what it is like to have both a vaginal delivery and a C-section (sob)!

All labels aside, I am trying not to flip out too much about the Bean's stubborn streak just yet. I am just shy of 35 weeks, I have great amniotic fluid (18 cm plus) and a little more time. I'm more than a bit discouraged that he is measuring so large, because that can be 1) an impetus to proper positioning and 2) even less pleasant to deliver vaginally, should he decide to turn around. The fact that I am outgrowing scrub sizes in a matter of days despite not gaining tons of weight on the scale (18 pounds total for the pregnancy thus far) should have been some sort of clue to his rapid expansion, I suppose. While a C-section isn't an ideal outcome for me, it won't be the end of the world if if is necessary. There is no guarantee that I would have a vaginal delivery, even if he were cephalic, and if he's ginormous, I'm not too sure that I would be all that keen on a dystocia or a 4th degree over a surgery. In fact, I *know* I would much prefer a C-section over a 4th degree (just repaired one at 2 am this morning, as a matter of fact) some orifices just shouldn't combine. Ah well, patience was never a strong suit of mine, but I will just have to wait to see how this all turns out. For now, I'm (mostly) healthy, he's healthy, and that is all that truly matters. (But if you have any sure fire remedies for flipping breech babies, please do clue me in!)

8 Random Things

Let me begin the post with apologies for the delay in responding to the tag by Medstudentitis; she is a great blogger and I'd hate for her to think that I was ignoring the tag! I'm sure that I am probably repeating myself with some of these "random things," as I have an embarrassing tendency to allow all of my inner random-ness hang out all over the place on this blog.

1. I am an introvert. If you want to get really particular, my Keirsey temperament profile is INFJ. This seems strange, I know, being in a profession that requires so much social interaction. I am quite easily fatigued by socialization and feel like I have to be "on" in social situations at all times. I much prefer small group settings to big parties. I require a certain amount of time to recharge and regroup either alone or just with my family. I love to just read, veg out in PJs, and just *be*. Now, don't get me wrong, I can be sociable with the best of them, it just really drains me emotionally. Sometimes I think having my job and an extrovert for a husband keeps me from being a total internet hermit full time!

2. I met Mr. Whoo in an online college football chat room. We were email buddies for about 9 months before we met in person and our relationship took a more romantic turn. We met online back in 1997, a time when internet dating was more fodder for Jerry Springer than mainstream, so we kept it kind of quiet until it became more acceptable. The best thing about emailing and chatting during the initial stages of our relationship is the solid foundation of friendship that we built, even before all of the physical attraction got started. Our friendhip is the rock of our marriage, and after all this time, he is still my best friend in the whole world. Aw.

3. I stubbornly dated the wrong guy throughout high school and college (7-ish years), thus stunting my dating experience dramatically. Don't get me wrong, he was a good enough guy, he just wasn't the right guy for me, and never would be, try as I may. I hate to say that those years were wasted, because the lessons that I learned from that relationship were invaluable, but I never had to work so hard to keep a relationship going. The relationship ended when, after seven odd years of dating, he told me he didn't know if he *ever* wanted to marry me. Crushing. I was devastated, but then I finally "got it" and moved on. Ironically enough, the week after that conversation took place, I had my first internet conversation with Mr. Whoo. There is a line in a Sister Hazel song that always reminds me of my first relationship - "You were the one who taught me what I don't need, and I thank you, I thank you for that."

4. In another lifetime, I was a competitive cheerleader. Seriously. I started cheering in the South at the ripe old age of ten. We practiced 4 hours a day for competitions during the summer months. I cheered through Junior High and High School, co-captaining the Varsity and Competitive Squads. I choreographed routines and lifts and cheers in my spare time. I coached a mini-squad and took them to competition. I went to a college cheer camp at the University of Kentucky and seriously considered trying out for my college squad...until I discovered I could either be a cheerleader or a Biology major. (Cheerleaders couldn't have Friday classes due to travel obligations, and all science courses were M, W, F.) I guess it's obvious how that decision worked out. No regrets here, either.

5. People fascinate me. I love to get a peek into someone's inner psyche. It is a large reason that I became a physician. I like to know what makes someone tick, literally and figuratively. From an early age, I was always the "counselor" of all of my friends. I think this is why I am so addicted to reality shows, reading blogs and message boards, and just plain people watching. Undoubtedly I am not alone, as I believe that this is the case for most Bloggers and blogging fans. Some people rock, and some people suck, but all people are interesting in one way or another.

6. One day, I'd like to write a book. I'm not really certain what I would write about, and I'm really not certain that anyone but my family and friends would want to read it. I just love books, and I love to write, and if I ever win the lottery and/or become independently wealthy, I'd like to write a book. I'll probably end up like Chevy Chase in Funny Farm, but that would be fun too.

7. I'm not really a "kid person." In fact, for a long time in my younger days, I swore that I would never have children. Then I met Mr. Whoo, and I decided that there was someone in this world with whom it was worth procreating. Don't get me wrong, I love CindyLou and we have fun together, and obviously I'm having another one, but I still don't know what to *do* with kids, especially in a group setting. I have the patience of a 3 year old...I know this because I have one, and sometimes, she's more patient than I!

8. I really love the *idea* of being outdoors, but the reality? Not so much. I love the scenery, but not the nitty gritty realities. Some outdoor activities are fun, like white water rafting, even canoeing. It is fun to hike, but I don't really want to camp unless there is air conditioning and a toilet involved. Bugs squick me out. I hate to be hot. I sunburn in 8.2 minutes flat. I guess that you could say that I love the great outdoors from a distance.

If anyone is still reading, I hereby tag anyone that didn't do this a month ago, when it first started making the rounds. Happy Sunday!

Still alive, still pregnant, still whiny

Is it really June already? I'm not ready for it to be summer! The last few weeks have been (SSDD, I know) a whirlwind of work, catching babies, visiting family, and minor freak outs about the status of the medical blogging community in general and about my blog in particular. It is difficult for me to even see hits from the same *state* on my stat counter without getting antsy about being "found out." I debated stopping altogether, but I miss blogging and talking to you all out in blogland. I guess that I was never organized enough about blogging to figure out what I wanted this blog to be, a mommy blog? A doctor blog? Educational? Entertainment? To tell the truth, more than anything I approached it like my own personal journal, an outlet for all of the jumbled thoughts in my brain that I need to spill and sort out in black and white. A journal that talks back ! (The coolest part of all.) So, I think that is what it will continue to be, with major alteration of details surrounding the particulars of my job. I think I can live with that. We shall see.

So let's catch up. On a personal note, I am 32 weeks and 2 days. The Bean has hiccups regularly, and I am convinced that he is still in transverse lie. I've been measuring almost 2 weeks ahead for the last few appointments, and I am dying to know how much this kid is going to weigh. (Did I mention that I don't have free access to an ultrasound machine, so I am at the mercy of the insurance/physician order just like every other pregnant woman? Shameful. I'm dying over here.) The "due any day now" comments are coming fast and furious, along with the shock and mock horror when I tell them that I still have at least 8 weeks to go. People can be so jerky to pregnant women, it's unreal. It continues to be a real test to patiently listen and empathize with my whiny pregnant patients, being a whiny pregnant person, myself. More than once, when asked when their maternity leave should start, I've stifled the urge to quip "You can't stop working until *I* stop working." Ha. I would never say this out loud, but it's fun to fantasize about. I had a very busy delivery month in May, and I am looking forward to having only half as many patients due in June. Pregnancy symptoms include lots of contractions (but a negative fetal fibronectin, so all is well), sciatic pain, mild pubic symphysis diastasis discomfort, cankles, borderline elevated BP (130-140s/80s), and killer heartburn. I am happy to report that I am no longer puking, even on a weekly basis.

Remember the less than stellar med student that I posted about a while back as an example of what not to do? Not too long ago, that very same student cornered me in the Doctor's Lounge and proceeded to tell me how "shocked" they were at the grade that I had given them. (For the record, it was in the ballpark of an 85 percent. I felt that I was more than generous for the work the student did!) I got treated to a talk of woe, that they had really, really wanted to do OB/GYN and my grade didn't place them at the top, where they believed they should be. I also heard about how the grade I gave them was the worst grade they had ever received. (Which shocked the hell out of me, leading me to believe that this student must have been allowed to slide by with being "cute" and "sassy" because their clinical knowledge and work ethic was sub par, as far as I could see.) I was as gracious as I could possibly be, and stated that it was possible that I was a stricter grader than the student's prior preceptors, and I encouraged them to pursue recommendations and work hard in their 4th year electives in OB/GYN. Then I politely excused myself before their audacity completely caused me to lose all composure and give them a real piece of my mind. Now I wonder if it would have been better to just lay it all out for them, because, really, I am not doing them any favors, allowing them to think that they were the best student around, and I am just a mean, hard-grading jerk of a preceptor. (No, it isn't me, it's *you.*) I just suck at unexpected confrontation. I need time to formulate coherent arguments, otherwise, I tend to just make off the cuff, not so nice, and certainly not constructive comments. Ah well, just thought it would amuse y'all to hear the update.

I am off this weekend, and Mr. Whoo and I are about to tackle the master closet. A project a long time coming, accelerated by the fact that an entire rack of clothes fell off the wall this past week, requiring immediate attention. Sigh. Home improvement sucks.

Promises, promises

Sorry, I should know better than to make grand promises of fantabulous posts only to disappear into blog oblivion once again! Time is flying past me more and more quickly these days, and many times I am too lazy to do more than lift an arm and swat at it as it zips past. I think that I am a pretty slovenly, lazy person by nature, yet the circumstances of my life rarely allow me to indulge those ingrained tendencies. Thus, I take the opportunity to do absolutely nothing whenever I can, preventing me from being more productive in my rare "off-times."

Last week my parents were in town for CindyLou's 3rd birthday extravaganza, which was great and probably a little over the top for a 3 year old (but not to the level of ponies and bounce houses over the top). We had the party at a local "fun center" that has all kinds of indoor and outdoor games/rides/ mini-golf/arcade etc. because, let's face it, nobody's idea of a good time is cleaning and hosting a whole bunch of 3 year olds and their parents at your own house. (Ok, for some people, maybe it is, but it is certainly not *mine*!) We also discovered the greatest birthday cake idea ever, the cupcake birthday cake. Basically it is a couple dozen assorted cupcakes frosted to appear as one cake. The great part is in the serving...no cutting, equal portion sizes for all, and you can have the flavor that you prefer. I must be quite sheltered because I thought this was awesome. She had a great time, and I can't believe that our baby girl is already 3 years old. I even wrote out the thank you notes and passed them out the following Monday. Go me! Ha. Needless to say, the party and surrounding festivities were enough to put me out of commission for several days, hence, no posts and nothing else got done around here, either.

This morning was one of those rare mornings that CindyLou graciously allowed us to "sleep in" (i.e. she woke up at 8 am and settled for watching Dora the Explorer in our bedroom as we valiantly tried to sleep through Dora's shrill bossiness.) Usually CindyLou is up no later than 6:45 am, and will not settle for less than breakfast shortly thereafter, so when I say that sleeping past 8 am is a treat, I am not kidding! The final straw was a painful song that Dora shrilled through (it was really pitchy, and just ai'ight for me, dawgs) to finally roust us out of bed. Then it was off to the hospital to round for me, out to breakfast and the park on a play date with my nurse for CindyLou, and out to the backyard to assemble the playhouse from hell (CindyLou's birthday present) for Mr. Whoo. I rounded on my patients and OtherDoc's patients, did the 5 circs that he so nicely left for me to do (I hate doing circs) and I am finally back around to visiting good old blog land.

So, as for interesting cases, a few weeks ago a colleague approached me to assist with a likely ovarian cancer case. This physician is rather "old school" and is brave enough to do cancer cases on their own. I, on the other hand, will refer in a heartbeat if I think cancer is in the cards. I'm a big chicken. At any rate, the patient was a young, mid-forties woman, who hadn't been to the gyn since the birth of her last child 19-some years ago. She presented to the emergency room with right lower quadrant pain, thinking she may have appendicitis. Instead she had a firm, fixed 12 cm pelvic mass, and a CA-125 of over 2500. We took her into the operating room, fully expecting an advanced ovarian cancer. Instead we found severe endometriosis. She had a twelve centimeter chocolate cyst that had torsed, causing her acute pain. She also had endometriosis implants throughout her pelvis, bowels, and omentum. We essentially did a debulking of endometriosis along with a hysterectomy. All of the frozen and final pathology came back completely benign. Amazing. Even more amazing to me is that, for as long as it must have taken for the endometriosis to become so severe, the patient stated that she never had a problem with pelvic pain until the day she presented to the emergency room. Women can be incredibly tough. She sailed through post-operatively, and went home within 3 days. It was nice to see that sometimes things that seem to be the worst may not be as bad as they appear. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of that.

With that thought, I'm off to supervise the great building project and to enjoy some of this spectacular spring weather. Happy weekend, all!

2 Weeks Post Call and Whiny

(I know I've posted a similar whine in the past, but humor me, this is on my mind.) Yes, it is just as it sounds, I have been on call, 24/7, for the last 19 days. Granted, I haven't been in the hospital/office the whole time, but it takes such a mental toll! Call as a private practice doc isn't anything like call when I was a resident. In residency, being "on call" means being in the hospital for 24 hours (and, prior to the 80 hour restrictions, up to 36 hours) at a time, working with a team of other residents/attendings, and caring for multiple patients, including surgical, laboring, antepartum, and post-partum. It was grueling, but the time was finite. Even on the worst of days, there was a definite time when I could turn the pager off, and take time only for myself. On days that I was not on call, I was generally out of the hospital around 5-6 pm, with no fear of having to return to the hospital until the following morning, as another resident team was shouldering the workload.

Now when I am on call, it is all me, and only me, on call for all of the patients that I have ever seen, and, over the weekends, on call for all of OtherDoc's patients, as well. Most of the time the calls I get can be handled from home with a phone call, and I can go about the rest of my day. Of course for deliveries and surgical emergencies, I need to be in the hospital ASAP. The hardest thing for me is that I can never quite mentally disengage, as at any time, I have to be ready to race to the hospital. I can't ever go further away than 30 minutes from the hospital, and if I am doing something with my family, we often take separate cars, "just in case" I get called. The pager can go off at any time, and you just never know what is going to be on the other end of the line.

When I was looking for positions post-residency, this was not what I had in mind. I was somewhat mislead into believing that call was split Q 3, and weekend call was to be every third weekend. What actually happened was that I was on solo call for a whole year until I could beg, cajole, and finally convince OtherDoc to at least split weekend calls. The other hospital OB has no interest in sharing call whatsoever, and only wants call coverage for vacations. Now there are some perks for being on call so frequently. I do get to deliver most of my own patients, and when I get calls for problems, I know my patients' histories and personalities fairly well, and can advise them accordingly. I also have fewer patients to cover than a group OB would, so that means less trips to the hospital/phone calls/ etc. while on call. I think that in the next 2-3 years the hospital is looking to hire another OB/GYN, and I am desperately hoping that this person wants more of a life and will go for sharing weekend call, and possibly sharing weekday call, as well. As CindyLou and the Bean grow up, I want to be available for sport games, recitals, and school activities without fear of having to leave to the hospital. I knew what I was getting into as an OB/GYN, and honestly, I don't mind being on call for my patients, because I know that they need me and trust me. I just need to strike a better balance of being available, mentally and physically, to my family and friends as much as I am for my patients.

I am now 27 and 2/7 weeks pregnant, and I am starting to physically slow down. Some days I feel just like a little old lady, whining about my "sciatica." Ha! I am rather short in stature, so the belly is quite "out there" and it is already inviting "due any day now" comments, which is maddening. My office has actually started to pare my schedule, and now, instead of 40-50 patients on my full days, I am averaging closer to 30-35 patients on a full day. This is infinitely more manageable, especially when it comes to charting, but now that I am moving slower and a little more tired it still takes all I have to get through those full days in clinic. My "half-days" are still averaging upwards of 20-28 patients, which is also difficult, but so far I am making it work.

It's funny (read kinda sad), because my patients are always commenting that it must be "so much easier" for me to be empathetic to my pregnant patients, as I am pregnant, myself. I am finding the exact opposite. It is hard for me to commiserate with the patients angling for time off work, complaining about common discomforts, and lounging about muttering about how *tired* they feel. Some days it takes all that I have not to tell them to "suck it up and deal!" It isn't a fair attitude to have, because I *do* know how miserable pregnancy can be, and misery is relative. Just because I feel like I am *more* miserable than they, doesn't mean that my patient isn't experiencing more misery than she ever has before. I do find it interesting that the majority of my patients that are having an "easy" pregnancy do not work, and those that are having the most complications are the working mothers.

For now I am going to close this post, because the whining is starting to annoy *me* so I know it must be most unpleasant for all 6 of *you* still checking back to see if I am still alive. I have some really good cases to discuss as soon as appropriate time has lapsed, so I will try to get around to updating in less than 2 weeks time. Happy weekend to all!

Thanks

Your comments on my previous post are all awesome, and I promise to respond to each of you in the comment section. I have decided to accept the gifts gracefully and to send out thank you notes to the patients at their homes. None of the gifts have been over the top, and I really do feel blessed that my patients want to celebrate this little bean with me. What's really funny is the patients asking me how *I'm* feeling. That takes a little getting used to, and I find myself getting all flustered and embarrassed. It made me realize what an interesting physician/patient dynamic there is with respect to disclosure. We want to know everything about our patients, medical problems to marital status to sexual history (and for good reason). Yet we disclose little, if any, personal info about ourselves in return; so much so that when patients ask how I am feeling or how the pregnancy is progressing, I feel uncomfortable speaking about myself on "their time." Does that make any sense? Anyway, I'm getting used to it, and it is kinda nice.

So far my Friday the 13th has progressed in standard crappy fashion, I started the morning off puking my guts up. I had been off of the Z0fran for a solid week and was feeling too cocky. Next I got to explain to the young girl in her early twenties (who was admitted to the hospital for unexplained ascites) that she has a pelvic mass, and, in all likelihood, has a large ovarian cancer. She has never been pregnant. She has never even had sex. Therefore, she had never seen an OB/GYN. Please go get pelvic exams, ladies, even if you aren't having sex. I can't help but wonder if the mass would have been caught so much earlier if she had only had an exam.

Then I saw a million and a half patients squeezed into a "half day" of appointments, not to mention a large wound infection (on a section that my partner did, thankyouverymuch) that I had to open, drain, and pack in the office. While the rest of the office staff breezed out of the office by 2pm, I caught up my charts and sifted through mountains of paperwork, FMLA papers, consult letters, and lab results. This weekend I am on call, and so I am fielding asinine phone calls from OtherDoc's patients wishing for me to phone them in narcotics (I won't) and diagnose anemia over the phone. Sigh.

In positive news, I am 25 weeks and 1 day. My last appointment my blood pressure was awesome at 124/80 (yay!) my weight was up for a total of 10 pounds for the pregnancy thus far (boo!) and everything is measuring right on target. The Bean is a mover and a shaker, and he particularly likes to party between 9-11 pm. In other big news, Miss CindyLou Whoo is all but done with diapers. She has been dry for almost 2 weeks solid now! Woo HOO! We still put her in a diaper at night (more as a failsafe than a necessity) but she only wears panties during the day. It is sad to be so excited, but we were hoping to get her good and out of diapers before the Bean makes his debut. So far, so good! I hope you all had a better Friday the 13th than I, and I also hope that you are having nicer weather wherever you are, it is too fragging cold and icky for APRIL 'round these parts! Have a fantastic weekend!

Life Gets in the Way

Hello to the four of you still checking to see if I'm updating! I have had a busy, busy March, both professionally and personally. The week after my last post I had 9 deliveries, and this past week my mother has been visiting and spoiling me by caring for CindyLou, doing laundry, and cooking! I have also been doing a little catching up on blogs, and I've been concerned with all of the uproar regarding HIPAA and medical blogging physicians getting threatened with lawsuits. I was really leery for the last 2 weeks, because I saw that I was being frequented by an IP near to my location, but then I found out that it was just my husband checking up on me! Whew. I do want those that read here to know that details of the medical anecdotes are altered and the time frames are changed and finer points are obscured so that the similarity to the actual cases is nominal. The way that I feel about the cases and my reactions, however, are 100 percent accurate. At any rate, I'm taking a bit of a break from the professional this week.

On a more personal note, the pregnancy is clipping along very well. I am 23 and 3/7 weeks, so therefore in a state of perpetual anxiety with regards to viability. Of course 24 weeks is the "benchmark" by which the pregnancy has about a 50/50 chance of survival. Survival, that is, with significant intervention and the very real possibility of far reaching disability and devastating, lasting damage. Next to the first trimester, the weeks lasting from 24 to 32 weeks can be terribly nerve-wracking for those of us that know too much. I'm trying to keep those niggling thoughts at bay and focusing more on the Bean's ever increasing movements, punches, and kicks. I'm also noticing occasional Braxton-Hicks contractions, which, while I know it can be normal, freaks me out just a little bit.

For all I know, I may have had these in my first pregnancy, and was just unaware of what they actually were. They are not painful or frequent, so I'm chalking it up to mild over-exertion for now. I was working much harder with my last pregnancy, and I did have a pre-term contractions scare, necessitating meds and bed rest for a few weeks, so I'm hoping that I will not have a repeat performance in this pregnancy. On the bright side, my nausea is becoming less and less frequent. I don't have to take meds every day, and I only puked twice this week! Woo Hoo! I'm up a total of 6 pounds for the pregnancy, but I started out well ahead of the weight curve, so my goal weight gain is only 15 - 20 pounds. (Trust me, I have plenty of fat.) I dropped so much weight breastfeeding with CindyLou, but like a dummy, didn't keep it off after we weaned. Since this may be my last pregnancy, I vow to keep it off this time.

I have an etiquette question for you budding Emily Posts out there. What is the protocol for accepting gifts from patients? Now that I am no longer able to hide my growing pregnant belly behind bulky white coats and baggy scrubs, plus the fact that news travels fast in a small town, the word is out that I am expecting, and my sweet patients are responding by bringing in baby presents for me to their office visits. I'm truly touched by their kind gestures, but, by the same token, it makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I purchased Thank You cards this week, and I am planning on sending them to the patients' home address. Is this acceptable? I don't feel like the patients need to buy me presents, but I feel like I would insult them to decline their kindnesses. It's a sticky ethical situation, so if anyone has any insight, I would love to hear from you.

I hope you all have a wonderful April Fool's Day. I haven't had much success with April Fool's pranks, though Guinness Girl from Red Red Whine to this day holds the "gotcha" award for best April Fool's prank played on me. Today I plan to finally call one of my friends that still doesn't know that I am pregnant. I hope she doesn't think it is an April Fool's Joke! Thanks for reading and don't give up on me!

I'm Still Here

It has been a very wild two weeks, and in keeping true to fashion, I've been slacking on all that is not essential to day to day survival. Unfortunately, blogging is one such thing, though I do find myself half-composing posts in my few stolen minutes between home and hospital quite often. Believe it or not, last weekend we actually tackled several tasks on the dreaded to-do list. In the last two weeks, I also had another birthday. Yet another reminder of how ancient I am becoming.

As I have mentioned before, I feel like my mind is stuck somewhere in 1998/1999 (not coincidentally, this is circa the early medical school years for me, when I ceased to be a person and started to become a bot). I am now finding myself emerging from my "bot haze" with most of my faculties intact, save this faulty sense of time. It is still jarring for me to realize that the time with which I most identify was 8 years ago! I suppose I could allow myself to be really bitter that the better part of my 20s (supposedly the greatest years of a young life) were spent slaving in med school and residency, but I also know that I wouldn't be reaping the benefits of that hard work a little earlier in life. All of that aside, I know that I am still relatively young and hopefully I have a lot more life in front of me, so I am trying to bring myself into the now. At any rate, I had a really nice birthday, very low key, as birthdays tend to get when you get older.

I had a really scary delivery recently. The kind that makes you feel completely helpless, even though you have done everything "right." The labor was quite innocuous, actually, which can lull you into a false sense of security. She was a primiparous patient, just a few days over forty weeks, and she came into the hospital in the early morning hours in early labor and progressed, more or less, on an unremarkable labor curve throughout the day. I was very pleased when she came in laboring, as she had an induction set for 41 weeks, and I much prefer patients to labor on their own, if possible. One notable characteristic of this young mother is that she is pretty terrible with any kind of discomfort...She just doesn't "do" pain very well. Any time I had to check her cervix in the office (even for the GBS swab) she would clench and scream. Needless to say, she got her epidural early during the course of labor, and was generally happy until it came time to push.

Right about the time that she had been pushing for about 30 minutes, her epidural began to wear off. Her labor nurse came out to the nurses' station and told me that the patient was having a full blown panic attack and refusing to push. When I entered the labor room, the patient's fear was palpable. She was completely out of control, clawing at the nurse, punching her husband, and kicking her legs and feet. She reminded me of a frightened, trapped wild animal. It was a sight to behold. The baby's head was at +2 station, and while the fetal heart tracing was still reassuring (as it had been throughout labor) the baseline had started to creep from the 130s into the 150s. I tried to calm the patient enough to try an operative delivery, but the patient would have none of it. She refused and demanded a section. She kept screaming, "There's too much pain. Something is wrong! I can't do this." After a few minutes of trying to reason with an irrational person, I left the room to call the OR for an urgent section, fuming the whole way. As the nurse began to prep the patient, I guess that the primal urge to push outweighed irrational fear, and by the time I returned to the labor room with the consent for the section the baby was crowning. The patient was no less panicked, but now she was pushing in earnest. The baby was delivered in three pushes, it had a triple nuchal cord, and was as white as a ghost. I had never seen a live baby that white before, and for that split second, I thought the baby was dead.

Then *I* began to panic. Oh my lord, she was right! There *was* something wrong, and despite the reassuring tracing, the baby was in trouble. I milked and clamped the cord and stimulated the baby, and thank God, she opened her eyes. I handed her off to the nurse, and after the longest minute of my life and a little blow-by 02, she began to squall. She remained white as a sheet, and rather floppy, but she was breathing well and her heart rate remained normal. My mind raced through the possibilities...an occult abruption? There was very little bleeding, and once the placenta was delivered, there was no more than a 5% marginal separation of the placenta, certainly not enough to constitute significant fetal blood loss. Uterine rupture? Mom's vital signs had remained normal throughout, and an inspection of her uterus revealed it to be intact. The baby's blood counts were normal, and though she had signs of volume depletion (decreased blood pressure, mild tachycardia) and received IV fluids overnight, there never was a satisfactory answer for her distress at delivery. She was able to go home with her parents on her second day of life, pink and sassy.

An interesting aside, as related to me by the baby's father's family, was that he (the baby's father) was born at full term, white and not breathing, and he had to be intubated for his first few days of life. There was never an adequate explanation for his distress, either. Needless to say, I earned a few gray hairs over this (possibly familial?) trait, and it served to make me even more aware how very unpredictable this field can be, and how close we come to the brink of tragedy for either mom or baby with every single delivery. Truly humbling as a physician, and frightening as a pregnant mother.

(Bah, CindyLou unplugged the computer immediately before I completed the post, so I had to go back and write it all over again. I feel like the truncated version somehow loses it's punch, but it's the best that I can do. Ah, well.)

It's a Beautiful Day

It is bright and blue and sunshiny outside, and it looks like Spring, but still feels like winter. I find yet another week of perpetual motion stopped dead upon the couch in sheer exhaustion. Life is just *flying* by me these days. I guess this is true for everyone. I'm on call this weekend, fielding call after call from OtherDoc's patients seeking pain meds. I'm not quite sure what to make of the sheer volume and clumsiness of the requests that I get the weekends that I am on call for him. I'd like to think that his patients are just testing the waters to see if the little naive covering doc will buy in to their tales of woe long enough to get a few pills here or there, but I'm more than a little concerned that he is a candyman kind of doctor. This bothers me on more levels than I can enumerate. Regardless, my answer is patent, "I'm sorry, but I will not call in narcotic pain medications to patients that I have not seen and examined. I'd be happy to call in Naprox.en until you are able to be seen in the office." Funny, but I don't get any takers on the offer for non-narcotic meds. Ah, well.

So it is the season of Lent. A relatively new concept for me, as I was not raised in a particularly religious household, is the "giving up" something for Lent. Mr. Whoo was raised in a fairly observant Catholic family (no meat on Fridays, the whole nine yards) so Lent is the norm for him. We do not attend a Catholic church, but our church does observe the Lenten season, so this is my first official foray. We have decided to give up watching television on weekday nights. *gasp* Shocking, I know, especially for this TV-phile, but the logic behind it is that we spend too much time on weekday nights vegging in front of the TV instead of doing productive things like laundry, cleaning, talking, or projects. We have also been going to bed way too late, simply because we are watching certain shows. It is not the shows, themselves, that we are giving up (because, come on, that *would* be crazy) but rather the time we waste on TV. All of the shows are being safely Tivo'd for consumption on the weekends, so I'm not missing out on Lost, American Idol, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, or anything else that I want to watch. I'm just a little delayed in catching up. Now, we started this on Wednesday (most difficult) and only had to do it for two days before being able to watch the shows, so we will see how it will go during a full week. I think it is going to be a good thing. We are doing things we need to get done, and going to bed earlier, which my body appreciates.

This week was a relatively quiet week for deliveries. I did have a primiparous patient that came in for a post-dates (41+) and LGA induction that received Cervidi.l at midnight that had a 9 pound baby boy a mere six hours later. That was pretty wild, but I was really happy for her that her super-long pregnancy culminated in a super-fast delivery. Hmmm, what else happened of note this week? Oh yes, we did find a little something out about the bean. It looks like we are going to have a little....













BOY!

Color me surprised! I guess I didn't realize how much I had been psyching myself up for another girl until the tech put the unmistakable evidence on the monitor. It was interesting because the tech did not know that I was a physician, and she was really great about explaining all of the anatomy that she was documenting. I just kept mum, because Mr. Whoo didn't really know what he was seeing, and it was nice to be treated just like another pregnant person. I was particularly happy because the anatomy looked spot-on perfect. The tech kept commenting about how "beautiful" the baby's anatomy was, which was pretty darn cool. Also funny was a shot of our son-to-be reaching down towards his nether regions during the scan. Ha. Definitely all boy. I'm still trying to register that we are going to have a son. It was just so much easier to picture us parenting a girl, since that is all that we know. All that matters is that the baby looks healthy and happy, and that is all that we would ever want. Now I have to come up with a clever name for the bean that goes with Whoo. Any suggestions?

Weepy and Lazy

That pretty much sums up the mood for the weekend. To say that I am uninspired would be an understatement. I have a to-do list half a mile long, and all I want to do is laze about on the couch, watch all of my TiFauxed shows, read Television Without Pity, blogs, and watch the snow fall outside. Is that so wrong? I did deliver 9 babies this week, gestated one of my own, and spent my Valentine's day in the hospital (taking care of patients). Never mind that I desperately need to go through eighteen stacks of unread magazines, junk mail, and medical journals. Never mind that I cannot see the floor over half of my bedroom. Disregard the fact that, while it is clean (thanks to Mr. Whoo), the laundry is unfolded in multiple different baskets from which we have been fishing all week long. I don't wanna work, I want to play online all day.

Emotionally, I know the pregnancy hormones are starting to permeate the brain, because I can't watch a damn thing without becoming a boo-hooing, snotty, sobbing mess. Second to last episode of The O.C. ? (shut up, I know) Bawled like a baby. Grey's Anatomy? Blubber city (and I don't even particularly like Meredith). We even watched the Adam Sandler movie, Click, and I couldn't stop shudder-sighing for 10 minutes straight. Add that to the requisite crying in church, and I'm the queen of emotionality. I am becoming my mother. I am very afraid.

CindyLou has been ever the source of comic relief, however. This week she has told her class at daycare all week long that I have no less than 3 babies in my belly at this given moment (I know it is getting big, but 3???) Another gem, we were driving past the mall and she asked to go shopping. I remarked "You are quite the shopper, aren't you?" To which she knitted her eyebrows fiercely and stated in her most indignant tone, "No I'm not a shopper, I'm CindyLou Whoo!" She also sings Guster's "Careful" at the top of her lungs, and singsongs "CindyLou is cuuuute!" Well, she is cute, and I guess we tell her that a lot. She is so much fun (when she isn't being defiant), and I love listening to the way her mind works. We are truly blessed as a family, and, well, there go the tears again.

I have been lurking on blogs, but not commenting, because then you would know that I am not too lazy to read other people's blogs, just too lazy to write my own. I've been a little frightened of the keywords by which my site is being searched. If you want to be a voyeur (see hidden videos, etc.) in an OB/GYN office you have serious issues. Yuck. Get some help, please. For the record, oh person that searches "snow tubing while pregnant" every living weekend, in general, gentle sloping tube runs should be safe enough in your first trimester, after that the uterus is no longer protected by the bony pelvis, and you may risk injuring the baby if you have a fall or direct impact to your belly. I truly hope this helps. Well, now it is time to snuggle with the cats and check the snow report for tomorrow. CindyLou and Mr. Whoo have President's Day off, but I, alas, do not. My only hope is for it to snow so much that the patients do not wish to risk driving to the office. Hey, a girl can dream, can't she? Have a great week!

Reasons Why I Suck and Clinic Gems

So yes, I suck. I suck at keeping my blog updated, I suck at keeping in touch with my friends, I suck at keeping on top of paperwork, and I suck at keeping my house clean. I feel like I have been trying to play "catch-up" for the whole month of February, and the month is nearly half-over! I just feel like I am sprinting to stay in place. Over the last week I have updated my delinquent dictations, caught up the majority of my clinic charts, did a few surgeries, delivered a handful of babies, sat on my couch, and slept (I mean, I even fell asleep during LOST this week). What I have *not* done is talk on the phone to friends with whom I haven't spoken in ages (these people don't even know I am pregnant yet!), clean my house, do laundry, blog, get my hair cut and highlighted (it is getting ugly, people), given Mr. Whoo his wedding anniversary present (our anniversary was at the end of January), put CindyLou's baby pictures in albums, bought valentines for CindyLou's class party, and a half a million other things on my ever-growing to-do list. Mr. Whoo has been picking up the slack as best he can, but I know he must be growing weary of his slovenly wife.

I was hoping to really kick into high gear this weekend, but I have been on call, so I was at the hospital until almost 2 am on Saturday morning doing a delivery. I slept in until 10, went in for rounds, and then my whole Saturday from noon until midnight was spent at the hospital watching over one of OtherDoc's VBACs. It is hospital policy that the physician be on site the entire time a VBAC is laboring (with good reason, of course). I am always up for a good VBAC, and the patient seemed like a good candidate with a few vaginal deliveries, then one emergency section for fetal distress. The frustrating part is that the patient got to completely dilated, pushed twice, and then simply refused to push anymore and demanded another section (a mere 8 hours after she had been offered an elective repeat C-section in the first place!) The baby was low, but not quite low enough to put on forceps or a vacuum, so off to the OR we went. Since the baby was so low in the pelvis at the time of C-section and the lower uterine segment was paper thin, the uterine incision extended into the broad ligament on both sides, causing lots of bleeding and venous oozing, and the bladder was pretty traumatized as well. To add fun to the surgery, the patient seemed to be feeling everything we did to the uterus, despite anesthesia's best efforts, refused to be put to sleep, and instead kept a running commentary throughout the entire surgery about her discomfort (despite a truckload of fenta.nyl and verse.d). Her urine was blood-tinged prior to and immediately after the surgery, and I checked the bladder integrity prior to finishing, but I'm still fretting over an occult injury this morning. Sigh. I'm keeping her Foley in until her urine starts to clear and keeping my fingers crossed.

I also had a few notable moments in clinic this week. The grossest of which involved one of my young, teenaged OB patients. We had done her GBS swab and checked her (closed) cervix because she was complaining of irregular contractions. Her blood pressure had been slightly elevated on our automatic cuff, so, as per routine, we had her relax on her left side, and planned to return to take a manual blood pressure. When my nurse returned to re-check her pressure, she and her boyfriend were *having sex* in the exam room on one of the chairs! Squick! My nurse kicked the boyfriend out, pulling up his pants as he went. Needless to say, the patient's blood pressure was even *higher* on re-check. The real kicker is that we sent her with orders for labs and a 24 hour urine to check for protein, and her mother (a nurse) called, concerned about whether we should pull her daughter from school since her blood pressure was climbing. I couldn't tell her mother that I expected the elevated pressure was more due to the girl being all hot and bothered in my office than to pre-ecclampsia! At any rate, the last thing she needs is to be out of school so that she can fool around more. SuperNurse swabbed the whole room down (including the chair) with alcohol, and closed that room to patients for the rest of the afternoon. What is wrong with people?!

Honorable mention clinic moments include the school teacher that complained that she had to work on Thursday and Friday (essentially a two day week) after the schools had been closed due to weather issues on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. "They should have just given us the whole week off!" she whined. I teased her and told her we should switch jobs. She then said, "Oh I would much rather do what *you* do!" Hm, so you are complaining about *having* to work a two day week, and you want to trade time off for bad weather (not to mention summers, holidays, and weekends off) for being on-call 24 hours a day, up to 14 days in a row? Call me crazy, but I think not. The other came from a patient on whom I am planning a tubal ligation. She wanted to be certain that her fiance was not told that she was having her tubes tied. Of course, it is none of his business what she does with her body, or how she chooses to practice contraception, but it seems like a suspect way to enter into a marriage. It is a sticky ethical situation, and while I know the proper thing to do with respect to the patient's right to privacy, I still can't help but feel odd about the situation.

So anyway, there is your latest installment of whining and moaning. Don't you feel better? I know I do. On the bean front, I am 16 weeks and 2 days, and I just had my Quad screen drawn this week. I'm still puking most mornings, and still taking Z.ofran every day. I think I may have felt movement this week a few times, but I am not certain. We find out in a couple of weeks what we are having. I'm still not sure what I think. I can't imagine not having another girl, but everyone else around me seems to be getting the "boy vibe." We shall see. Thank you guys for coming back to check on me, I will try to be better about updating the blog. I really do enjoy it when I get the chance. Have a great week!

Just Another Day in Paradise

I awoke at 4am (thank you, pregnant bladder) this morning from a somewhat disturbing dream of being trapped within the body of steel bleachers with a feeling of dread. Today is my surgery day, and I had a few big cases lined up. I chalked the portent of doom up to normal pre-surgery jitters. I should have listened to my gut. Shortly after arriving to the hospital, I started rounding on patients, one of whom was a patient that I believed was more of a "social admit." The patient was a 37 week pregnant woman that had presented the night before complaining of contractions. The triage nurse insisted that she had changed her cervix from 1 cm to 1 cm with "a little wiggle room." Since she lived rather far from the hospital and was to be a repeat C-section for delivery, I griped a little (good-naturedly, of course) that the nurse was killing me, but admitted her overnight for observation. Well, chalk up another for the nurse and her keen instinct, because the patient broke her water about 5 minutes prior to my arrival on the floor.

At first, she was only 2-3 cm dilated, so preparations were made for an ASAP C-section, and I went down to start my portion of a pelvic reconstruction surgery that I had co-ordinated with one of the urologists. He was still placing a sling, which was fortunate because I got a stat page that the nurse thought the C-section patient may be fully dilated! I broke scrub, ran upstairs, and checked to find the patient was about 7-8 cm. I spoke with the patient briefly about proceeding with a VBAC, to which she responded as though I had asked her to voluntarily cut off a limb. So, instead I ran back to the OR, asked them to prep for a stat section, and peeked into the room where the urologist was still working and asked him if he could stay busy for another 20 minutes so that I could deliver the baby. He happily agreed, and I bounced to the next OR and did a quick 20 minute skin-to-skin repeat C-section with tubal ligation with the scrub tech.

It was all of 9 am when I had re-scrubbed for the pelvic reconstruction case, and I was pretty much on an adrenaline rush for the remainder of the surgery. Luckily, this case went very smoothly (pelvic reconstruction is not one of my more favorite surgeries to do). After this case, I went to do a quick consult and pelvic on a young, uncooperative teenage girl, and back to the OB floor to complete rounds, check NSTs, and finish discharges. I had a minute to grab a bottle of water and half of a sandwich and it was time for the OR once again.

Next was a hysterectomy, and, unfortunately for me, I did not have another doc to first assist. While I am perfectly capable of doing the surgery on my own with a tech, it just goes so much more smoothly and quickly with two pairs of hands and eyes. I got into some pretty brisk bleeding on the right pelvic sidewall and got a little closer to the ureter than I liked, so back the urologist came to check out the plumbing. I just really have a phobia about occult bladder and ureter injury during hysterectomy. I saw a few in residency that had to go back to the OR after the defects were discovered in the post-operative period...it is just not pretty, and I get super paranoid about these things. I felt badly for bothering the urologist, but he assured me that he would rather have 30 intraoperative consults at the time of an original surgery than having to go back in days after the event. Fortunately, everything checked out ok, and while the patient lost a little more blood than I would have liked, she did very well throughout the surgery.

Then, it was back upstairs to review more NSTs and an ultrasound on one of my mild pre-ecclampsia patients (who also is a gestational diabetic). The doppler flow was worsening, as was her 24 hour urine protein level, so we made the decision for induction. Orders were written, post-op patients were checked, and my remaining surgeries proceeded without incident. I picked up CindyLou from daycare, we came home, ate dinner, she had a bath, a tantrum, and a bedtime story. Now she is tucked up in bed, I am tucked in on the couch (as yet unshowered, with a splitting headache, I might add) and I am praying for no more laboring patients tonight. Ah, just another lovely day in paradise. Isn't medicine fun and glamorous? Ha.

Issues

Taking a break from the medical for a moment. Mr. Whoo and I are facing a friendship dilemma. We are, perhaps, being somewhat unreasonable. In the past I have mentioned Mr. Whoo's core group of good friends, and how much they are a part of our own extended family. This group is such an entity that I was a smidge more apprehensive about meeting "the guys" than I was about meeting Mr. Whoo's parents. Over the years I have gotten close with all of the boys as well as extremely close with their wives. All of this was just dandy....until one of the guys cheated on his wife. Even worse, said guy was at our house visiting for the weekend when his wife found out!

His infidelity unmasked a whole multitude of other undesireable facets of his personality that, until that time, he was able to keep hidden from even his close friends. Mr. Whoo and I found ourselves sympathetic to Cheater's wife, and distancing ourselves from him. True to form, while Cheater's behavior caused great chaos within the core group, the guys came to the decision that Cheater was still "a part of them" and while his behavior was not condoned, it was forgiven. Fast forward a couple of years, the couple is now divorced. Cheater, after various and sundry placeholder relationships, jobs, and stunts, is now living with the very woman with whom he cheated, and is bringing her to "group" events as his girlfriend. Even more bizarre, most of the guys and girls are completely accepting of her and often speak of how "nice" this person is! I know for a fact that she knew that Cheater was married when she had the affair with him, so, in my opinion, that alone strikes her from the "nice" book. Mr. Whoo and I have been the most vocal in our disapproval, both of Cheater and his girlfriend, but now everyone is treating us as if we are strange for not just "letting it go."

Now, I know that everyone has their own personal "hot-button" issues. For me, it is infidelity. Without being too detailed, it has affected me in a personal way (not in my own marriage, but in my family). I realize that I am completely being emotional about this, but it is something I can't help. I can't even look Cheater in the eye anymore. Mr. Whoo rarely answers his calls. He and his girlfriend live within a reasonable distance from us, and he is forever making overtures for us to make plans together. We are starting to run out of excuses. So now we are wondering, are we being childish and immature about this whole issue?

For me, I like to think that I surround myself with people of good character. Since Cheater has shown his character to be sorely lacking, I would be happy to let the friendship fade into oblivion...save the "group," which keeps him squarely in our social picture. So where do we go from here? We can't spend forever avoiding him and shunning her. That makes me feel as though we don't have strong enough character to move on from our friend's bad decisions. So why do I feel, in my gut, that just "letting it go" reflects badly on me (like I'm condoning the behavior)? Argh. See what I mean about issues?

Under the Weather

Both literally and figuratively (lucky, lucky me)! I'm back! Battered, broken, sick, and exhausted, but back at home and back in the blogging world. Did ya miss me? Nah. No matter how wonderful an idea of a tropical cruise in January may sound, don't succumb to the allure. My body and my immune system are seriously up in arms over my fluctuating climate. We went from temperatures in the 20s into the 80s and then back to the teens in a little more than a week. There is a full fledged revolt waging here, and it is not pretty. As badly as I am feeling, Mr. Whoo has it worse, and today is his birthday. Happy Birthday, honey!

It is also not a fabulous idea to plan 2 back-to-back vacations in the weeks prior to a loved one's (very important) birthday, especially for a procrastinator like me. I had already had a good idea of the present he was getting, but minor details like dinner and a cake and all of the rest was a little more tricky with only a few day lead time. It is actually a very good thing that I didn't have a huge shindig planned, because the both of us were rendered absolutely useless this weekend, by colds and work and the like. On top of that we got about 4 to 5 inches of snow today (yay!) It has been a very low key day, and we have really needed it. Right now, Mr. Whoo is tending the driveway and CindyLou is busy decorating and re-decorating her kid sized snowman.

I am trying to recuperate, not only from vacation, but from getting my butt kicked at work in the last 5 days. We arrived home late on Tuesday, after a long, long 6 hour flight delay, pee soaked jeans (CindyLou's, not mine!), the great toddler pant airport search of 2007 (which culminated in a set of oriental style pj pants, only 27 dollars, in which the seam ripped within the first hour of wear), and a blizzard for the drive home. Wednesday, I had 3 surgeries scheduled, but one cancelled at the last minute, and, for a fleeting moment, I believed that I was going to get to leave the hospital before noon. Unfortunately, a laboring patient thwarted those dream plans and I was at the hospital until about 10 pm. Thursday brought 56 clinic patients and a tearful breakdown (moi), and I arrived home at 7 pm. Early Friday morning, around 3:45 am, a term patient with a non-reassuring fetal strip brought me into the hospital. Thankfully, the baby scored well on a biophysical profile, and the patient went on to have a very nice delivery after a little augmentation. The baby was perfectly fine, it just had a really tight nuchal and body cord. Luckily, since I was worried about the strip, I cancelled clinic patients to keep an eye on the baby. (Well, I say lucky now, but talk to me next week after my 100th patient in one day.)

This weekend I am doing my vacation penance call for OtherDoc, which has earned me the privilege of denying several pain meds to seekers, and a 6 am delivery this morning. I arrived home just in time to "get up" with CindyLou so that the birthday boy could sleep in, do the dishes, put away the groceries, and whip up some chili. Since then, I have been catatonic on the couch, staring out at the snow, and trying to keep from throwing up. Awesome. Right now, I actually am starting to feel more human! On that note, CindyLou is back in from the snow and hungry, so duty calls! I've missed you guys, and can't wait to catch up on what is going on in the blogging world! Oh, and I will publish comment responses soon, promise.

Award?

Holy cow, I've been nominated for a MedGaget 2006 Medical Web Blog Award, and here I am not posting for weeks and weeks. Who did this? (I suspect Fat Doctor...am I right?) I am incredibly flattered that a whole 12 people have voted for me already. Awesome. It looks like I am a far cry from winning, but if you wanna vote for fun, here is a link! Really, it is an honor just to be nominated. Thank you! :)

Back and Gone Again

My poor blog, she's been so neglected these last few weeks! We've had a jam-packed holiday season with multiple family obligations (not to mention work and the fact that this pregnancy is continuing to kick my ass). Over the Christmas holiday, my parents were in town for a week. It was wonderful having them here. CindyLou was so much fun this Christmas, saying "Merry Christmas, Mommy!" on that day and in the week following Christmas Day. So adorable. My parents left on the 26th and Mr. Whoo's brother and his family arrived that same evening. I spent most of the 27th catching up on office paperwork, doing a few small surgeries, and watching in amazement as the Seminoles finally played a good game, um, second half.

Then it was off to the ski cabin that Mr. Whoo's family had rented for the New Year's holiday. The cabin was really nice with amazing mountain views, and it was minutes to two different ski resorts. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. It was warm (40-50s) for the majority of the week. The first two days we had snow on the ground at the cabin, so the little ones got to sled and make snow angels. We also took them snow tubing one afternoon. There were 10 adults (including 2 pregnant women) and 7 kids (ages ranging from 9 months to 5 years), so to say that it was busy would be a gross understatement. For the most part, it was relaxing. I didn't do a whole lot of skiing, partially due to the less than stellar conditions, partially because of the pregnancy, and mostly because I generally spend most of the first few hours of skiing on my ample posterior, until I get my "ski legs." The majority of the time was spent watching bowl games, playing board games, and eating. My kind of vacation! We all watched the ball drop together, and I did have the teeniest sip of champagne (so good, sigh).

We arrived back home on New Year's Day, and our house appeared as though a Christmas bomb had gone off within. Messy, messy, messy. Mr. Whoo has been amazing about cleaning up Christmas. OtherDoc is also on vacation this week, so I got the double whammy of coming back to a full schedule and all of his patients to cover, to boot. I swear that my office staff is trying to kill me. Tuesday I had 53 patients in the office, Wednesday I had an induction and 4 surgeries, Thursday I had a c-section and 52 office patients, and Friday, for my "half-day" I had 27 office patients and 2 surgeries. Needless to say, I spent most of Friday night catatonic on the couch. This weekend I have to finish writing all of my clinic charts (before I forget what happened) and I must dictate my delinquent charts (all 26 of them, ack.)

Oh yes, and we also have to pack for the cruise that we are taking this next week. In retrospect, I realize that the timing of this cruise is less than ideal, but we booked the cruise before the ski trip was planned. The cruise is not just any old cruise, it is called The Rock Boat, and we have been on a few over the years. It started back in 2001 with Sister Hazel and a few bands and has since grown to a rather large floating concert with multiple bands. We are going with a group of friends, and it is always a good time. As expected, this is usually a big booze cruise, so I am a bit apprehensive about being the sole sober person, not only in my group of friends, but on the entire cruise ship. On the bright side, there will be lots of great music and concerts that I will actually remember this time, and I'll be ready with the video camera to record any and all funny/embarrassing moments.

We fly out Tuesday morning, we will drop CindyLou off with Mr. Whoo's mom, and then we are driving down with all of the gang on Wednesday to Fort Lauderdale. I am actually very thankful to be getting a few vacations so close together, it is just a matter of getting prepped and on the way that is stressing me out. Once we are on the boat, it will be nothing but relaxation. So, I am afraid that I will once again be out of touch for the next week or so. I have lots of interesting ideas in my head for future posts, and will do my best to post more regularly once the craziness dies down. Bear with me, life is getting in the way of blogging, it seems! I hope that you all are having a great 2007!