Don't Know Whether to Laugh or Cry

I am so pissed/upset/frustrated right now. Before I get to the juicy stuff, let me provide some background...

My MIL and FIL just left after having visited for 1 week. It went fairly well, but my usual limit with the inlaws is about 4 days till I get really anxious and annoyed around them. The problem, as you may have mused, is primarily with my MIL. She's very different than the mother I grew up with, and for lack of a better descriptor, she MOTHERS the hell out of you! She essentially took over my home, and did all our laundry, all the cooking, and yes, even swept out our garage. The woman is a very high-energy individual, and although I'm very thankful that she did some of these things to help out the pregnant lady, it was just...a...bit...much. I'm 32 years old and have been taking care of myself just fine all these years, thank you very much. She has such different standards to how a house should be kept that she probably marveled at how DH and I manage to get by. But whatever, I was able to cope. And now they are gone, so I am decompressing from the visit.

Friday, we had our monthly checkup with the OB. He said that the 20-week u/s showed placenta previa, where the placenta blocks the opening of the cervix. This I already knew, based on the news we'd gotten at the actual u/s appointment. I've done a little bit of consulting with Dr. Google on this, and was reassured by the fact that 90% of all previas diagnosed in the 2nd trimester resolved on their own as the uterus continues to grow. So I wasn't too worried about this, until our OB took a rather cautious tone and surprised us with his recommendations - no sex, no travel, limited exercise. Seriously?!?! WTF???

Apparently the primary concern with this condition is the danger of the placenta separating from the uterine wall, which would cause me to hemmorrage. Of course, this could be life-threatening to both mother and baby. Air travel does not increase the chances, but his concern was that if this were to hit me while I was in the air, I might not be able to get the proper medical attention soon enough. We have a scheduled trip coming up in a few weeks, so this was a real blow to us. We were intending to go see my husband's family, including a sick uncle who has been ill for some time. We haven't made our final decision, but right now we're leaning towards just hubby going on the trip, and me staying home.

Later that day, I do more research on the condition, and what I read was scary enough for me to stop reading. I had a minor breakdown with hubby, and confessed about how scared I was for baby and I. I just wish I could fast-forward to my u/s that is supposed to happen in 7 weeks to see whether this condition resolves itself or not. If it does not, it could mean stopping work early, and severely limiting activitiy to the point of bed rest. Sigh...at least everything is ok with baby, and I feel her moving on a daily basis now. She is my bundle of joy already and I haven't even met her yet.

So tonight, SIL calls. I don't remember if I've gotten into the topic that is she on my blog, but she is quite the handful. In a nutshell, she's a bit socially inept, and has quite a naive/abrasive personality to boot. Hubby can't stand that she doesn't take accountability for her actions, and MIL constantly defends her and tells everyone how much better she's gotten. From my perspective, she's a spoiled brat who should be dealt with more honestly when it comes to family communications. But this would mean dipping my toes too far into the politics of DH's family, and I just don't have the energy or desire to do so at this point in my life, if ever.

First of all, I didn't feel like talking to her, so I moaned to myself when I heard hubby offer me up to her. I had emailed a bunch of pics from the 20 week u/s, and she launches into the conversation with, "I see your baby has a cyst in her brain, too". WTF???? She goes on to explain that her first baby had one detected in her u/s, and that they had to check other stuff to make sure he would not be mentally affected. It turns out he was ok, though, but they'll watch for it with her 2nd baby. I told her that my doctor had never mentioned this with my baby, but SIL was quite sure she saw it on the u/s I sent her (like she's an expert), but reassured me that the OB "probably didn't say anything to us because he didn't want us to worry".

At this point I'm about ready to grab her neck through the phone and strangle her. I shifted the conversation, and told her we still needed to figure out our travel plans. She and her husband are going on this trip as well, and she made light of my diagnosis and said she didn't think I needed to worry about traveling. I think she said something along the lines of, "It's not like you're going to be running laps around the plane or anything." I reminded her about my doctor's orders NOT to travel, but she continued on. I just cut her off and said, we still need to figure things out.

I got off the phone with her quickly at that point, and shared the conversation with my husband. I wondered aloud if she was just trying to be a manipulative b*tch or whether she truly was as clueless as someone in that position would have to be. I've been pretty upset the rest of the night, and am upset now because I let her get to me so much.

I think I just need to decompress from the inlaws for a good while, and not talk to them anytime soon. My family is so much more laid back, and I am so thankful for the support I receive from them. One of these days, though...I may just have to blow up at MIL or SIL. Thus far, it hasn't happened, but I do quite amuse myself playing various scenarios through my head.

Mama's Intuition

I had my ultrasound on Monday, and it was so neat! The actual appointment took longer than I expected, around 45 minutes total. The ultrasound lady had all types of things she had to check for, like measurements of the skull, brain, femur, waist and various checks on the heart, face, and spine. She was very cool, and patiently explained what she was looking for to hubby and I. At one point she even took a picture of one of Kiwi's feet - when I asked her if she needed a measurement on that as well she said, "No, I'm just taking a picture of it for you 'cause it's cute..." How cool is that??

Everything checked out, and appeared normal. Kiwi weighs 12 ounces (my husband excitedly observed that she weighed the same as a can of beer - men and their observations), and was quite active during the appointment. It was so cute to see her little arms and hands and legs and feet moving about. At one point, we saw the perfect mug shot of her little face fill the screen, but the lady couldn't get a picture of it quick enough. Bummer!

My placenta did look a bit low, but didn't appear to be covering the cervix. I'll probably have to go back for another u/s, maybe in about 10 weeks. I see my OB next week and will get the details from him then.

My dream/intuition of Kiwi being a girl was right! I mentioned to the lady about the dream I had about her early in my first trimester, and she said that in her experience with patients and such, that those dreams are usually right about 80% of the time. I know lots of ladies who've either dreamed the correct gender or "just had a feeling" and were right. It's neat to think that somehow our bodies just know, to the extent that our minds are consciously aware too.

Here's the best pic I got of her yesterday, a cute little profile. Isn't my baby girl a cutie?!

Quick Update and Congrats!

Wonderful news today - Vee is pregnant! For those of you interested in popping by and providing your congrats, her blog is at http://sweetvee.blogspot.com/. I'm so excited for her - another successful IF to pregnancy story!

Some folks that could use some support are Beagle (pwp site) and Nina at http://stellaandben.typepad.com/stellaandben/.

As for me, things continue to progress nicely with the pregnancy. I feel movement pretty regularly now, and Kiwi seems to be most active at night after dinner. We have our 20-week ultrasound on Monday, and I CAN'T WAIT to find out whether Kiwi is a girl (like I've been thinking) or a boy (which will just crack me up to no end since I've been calling Kiwi a girl this whole time). I need to call the OB today to see if my triple marker blood test yielded any troubling results. This is where they test for down's, spina bifida, stuff like that. But apparently it has a high false positive test. It's been 2 weeks since I gave blood for the test so I'm thinking that no news is good news. But since this is such a key test I want to call them just to be sure...

I'm definitely showing and am amused at how nice people are to pregnant women. It just seems to lift them up and bring a smile to their faces, which in turn, makes me feel all good and happy inside :)

Once we find out the sex of the baby, all systems will be go in terms of nursery plans, etc. I've been holding out on buying anything until I find out, but that day is hopefully drawing near!

Hope everyone is doing well!