Friday, October 07, 2011

Recalibrating: Sixteen

So, under the new, compressed timeline, I am 16 weeks today (or maybe yesterday).  What's a couple of days difference?  Really at this point, I'm just happy to be in the ballpark of how far along I am.  I'll just get the month right.  I'm recalibrating. 

That being said, I am no longer comically large.  I am actually appropriately large.  No one at work has noticed (or at least not said anything).  I'm full-time in maternity wear now.  And why shouldn't I be?  I mean, I'm basically 4 months along. 

And now, here is the list of 8 reasons I took the wrong due date news so hard (when really, it's good news):
  1. I don't like to be wrong.  No one does.  But I am knowledgeable about pregnancy and the female reproductive system.  It's sort of a hobby of mine reading up on the various indignities our bodies must undergo.  How could I be so very very wrong on this specific topic?
  2. This isn't my first rodeo.  How did I not notice?  Though, to be sure, there was nothing to notice (except for the bleeding...which I joke is how I figured out I was pregnant the last two times).  But as I said to my mom, sister, and aunts when I told them the story...bleeding is the universal sign for I'm not pregnant, so how could I know?
  3. I did things in that month that I would not normally do while pregnant (hello water skiing), and I really hope I didn't jeopardize the health or well-being of Muse.  This is really the #1 reason, but I wanted to start off a little more light-heartedly.  In fact, I can't even remember what I did in June and my blog archives were no help in telling me whether I took prescription mobic back in June and early July. 
  4. I know I took Allegra which is pregnancy category C because animal studies indicate slowing in fetal weight gain and survival with doses 3 times higher than typically used.  Of course, I am not taking Allegra now so I don't anticipate any issues with that.  Let's assume I did take mobic (I am sure what I find will be reassuring). 
  5. Mobic is pregnancy Category D (after 30 weeks, C before 30 weeks) because taking Mobic during pregnancy can harm the unborn baby (heart defects, still birth, and lower neonatal survival).  If I did take it, it wasn't for very long and at a very low dose (much lower than what I was allowed to take by prescription and significantly lower than the levels found to affect a fetus).  However, I will mention it to my doctor, and I will have them inspect Muse's heart at the 20.5-week ultrasound.  That reminds me, I forgot to mention that the placenta (as seen in the confusing ultrasound) was high and in the back so probably very little chance of previa or accreta.  I asked specifically for location information (cervix is 5 cm too). 
  6. As for the alcohol consumption, let's just say it was moderate and I was never drunk and in a condition where I couldn't dirve a car or care for my children, so we'll assume I was caring for the one on the inside as well.  I would have been about 3.5 to 4 weeks along, so I don't even think I was supplying nutrients yet.  The literature is pretty biased on this front, so there isn't much to read.  March of Dimes is in the abstain during childbearing years camp and some other literature says moderate throughout is OK, so I'll go with it.  Can't change it now.  "But why would you drink when you were trying to get pregnant?" you might ask.  Well heck, I was trying to get pregnant and had just gotten my period, so awesome!  Except it wasn't my period.  It was...uhmmm...I have no idea what, but not my period, so we'll just say I was consoling myself slightly with spiked iced tea.
  7. Deadlines.  My Gantt chart is all messed up.  We have a host of things we'd like to accomplish before Muse is born.  I'd like to get some of them done.  If we don't, it's not the end of the world, but I don't really want Muse to have to spend his first night at home sleeping in a laundry basket.  And I need to find a place to put Chuckles in the car.  His car seat will have to be moved to the completely inaccessible third row, so I would like to get a captains chair for the center row so he an access the back without crawling in the tailgate.  Plus we need a bigger refrigerator (regardless of Muse, really).  And to get a bigger fridge, we have to reconfigure some of the kitchen (I actually hope we can just find a larger fridge that will fit in the hole we already have because doing a kitchen remodel while pregnant sounds totally un-fun...and in the winter when grilling is harder).
  8. It might sound brilliant to skip ahead a month and make pregnancy a little quicker, but it's not.  This is my absolute last baby ever and I guess I would've liked to have savored and enjoyed it.  I mean, obviously I felt fine that first month so I could have enjoyed my little secret for a while.  This sounds kind of sentimental.  I'm not really like that, but I'd like to have known, probably mostly because I don't like being wrong.
I did call the doctor and talked to the nurse about changing my due date.  Why is the nurse at the Ob's office so confused about reproductive matters?  I would assume she talks with pregnant women all day, every day.  Further, I would assume she has read a book on pregnancy and perhaps even had a baby.  Why did I have to spell round ligament pain for her?  Why was she confused when I said that i needed to change my due date due to an ultrasound?  I mean, I cannot possibly be the first person to whom that has happened.  I've even seen an Oprah show on "I didn't even know I was pregnant and then a baby fell out of me", so it's not like being a couple of weeks off can be all that uncommon.  She did agree to put the order for the Quad/Multiple Marker Screening up at the front desk for me and I retrieved it, so now I just have to go have the blood drawn. 

Other than that, things are progressing at light speed here.  It seems like just last week, I was only 11 weeks along and here i am 16 weeks already.

****Totally new topic****

Chuckles does not care for school.  He likes recess and lunch and gym/art/music/computers/library/science, but when it comes to things in his actual classroom, he's not so fond.  I'm having a really hard time with it myself.  I can sense his frustration, but I don't know what to do to help him.  I'm waiting for the first grading period reports to come out so I can schedule a conference with the teacher.

Part of it is the material they are teaching.  He knows it.  They do 90 minutes of phonics drilling every day.  That is not what he needs.  I don't even think they do math every day.  He loves math.  I just taught him guzintas the other day.  What?  You don't know guzintas?  It's division (goes into), but I don't call it that for him to make it sound more fun.  We do it at night when I am tucking him in.  It's dark and quiet and just the two of us and we talk about how many groups of 5 it would take to make 15 or 20 and how many groups of 9 it would take to make 27, etc.  Or if you took 35, how many groups of 7 guzinta it? 

A while back, he discovered the dictionary I got when I graduated 8th grade.  His children's dictionary didn't have the word he wanted to look up (I think the word was sullen).  My encyclopedic dictionary interested him for weeks.  He taught himself Roman numerals and proceeded to answer his homework (5+1=) one night in all Roman numerals (both his answers and the numerals were correct, by the way).  The teacher was not amused.  I didn't really care since his answers were right.  Maybe she doesn't know VI or XIV so she couldn't evaluate.  I am trying to teach him the importance of following directions and conformance except, for the most part, I don't really believe it.  Sure, sometimes you just have to suck it up, but isn't that a lesson that can wait until he's a corporate drone?

He also discovered the list of presidents in the back (ending at G. H. W. Bush, since you know, the book is old).  He then taught himself how to figure out how old they all were when they died (subtracting year of death minus year of birth).  I don't know how he did it exactly because he doesn't know borrowing yet, but I showed him a couple of tricks and he did OK. 

He needs more (or maybe less) from school, but he is no where (not even close) near mature enough to advance to the next grade.  He needs differentiation.  Is the school required to give that to him?  They gave it last year (and then I found out that information was not passed along to this year's teacher).  I had similar issues in school, but I liked school.  I didn't mind doing the busy work because it was easy, and I liked being good at something, graded, and ranked.  He hates the busy work. 

And the amount of homework!  He knows the answers, but his fine motor skills for writing out the worksheets are not so hot.  Sometimes a stupid read the story & answer three questions about the story sheet will take 40 minutes to complete (including me leaving the room because I get so frustrated...because if you would quit complaining and just do it already, you'd be done) and him crying because I insist that he form the letters the correct way.  Usually I just leave the room or go do dishes.  I've put Mr. Long-Suffering in charge of the homework on a few occasions because Chuckles and I are so similar we do tend to butt heads.

I'm out of my element here, but let's just hope I figure it out because I have two more coming up behind him and I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel every time.  Once I figure out how to advocate for my child, I will be set.  I'm sure each child will have his own set of superspecial issues I'll need to address, but once I have a framework in mind for how to phrase it with teachers to get what we need (positives and win-win for everyone), things will be easier. 

1 comment:

  1. hey there, I've read for a while but never commented, followed you from AskMoxie...re: Chuckles, have they evaluated him for Gifted? In our state it's AIG (Academically & INtellectually Gifted.) Last year was the first year they screened kindergartners, and Bean was identified in Math. He's enjoying this year a lot b/c he's grouped w/4 others in his class & they do in class differentiated work, and also get pulled out w/the AIG teacher. Chuckles sounds brilliant! and it's hard to be bored, I know it makes my kiddo anxious. good luck! Lisa F.

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