Sick day

Today we're having a "sick day."  Moms don't usually get sick days, but their kids do.  Little Man got sick yesterday.  I'm not sure with what, but he had a fever when he woke up from his nap and didn't want to eat.

 

My guess is that we were going and going so much last week that his little immune system just got plum tuckered out.  So we gave him some medicine and sent him to bed at his normal time.  We thought he was starting to feel better because he played his normal "get out of bed every 3 minutes" routine before finally going to sleep.

 

Then sometime around 2:00 am, he came to wake me up because his pajamas were wet.  My first groggy thought was his pullups leaked, but he said it was his shirt.  My second guess was water leaked out of his sippy cup.  Then I got a whiff of that harsh acidic smell of vomit.

 

Great.

 

So I get up to check his bed and discover that it's all over his pillow by sticking my hand in it.  It's no fun to stick your hand in cold vomit at two in the morning, just so ya know.  I say a little prayer of thanks that he didn't aspirate on his vomit while sleeping and, with one eye open (which is probably why I stuck my hand in vomit), I got his clothes and his bed linens changed.  I then got him more medicine because I noticed while changing him how hot his little body was and sent him back to bed, again with prayers that he wouldn't get sick again. 

 

He slept through the rest of the night.  He hasn't been vomiting again, but he still had his fever when he fell asleep on our bed this morning.  He's since been moved to his bed and he's still sleeping.

 

Oh, and I have a headache and a sore throat.  Gee, it's good to be home.

 

 

He's improving his aim

Potty training a boy is a completely foreign thing to me.  I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I don't pee standing up, but that's beside the point.  He's been in underwear for a little over a month now and it's gone much more successfully than it did last summer when we tried it.  I'm sure it helps that he's older and his buddies at school are also in the middle of potty training.

 

Little Man has gotten to where he doesn't want me anywhere near him when he's in the bathroom.  He yells at me to "get out" whenever I try to go in there with him, so I just stand by the door, usually, to make sure he's actually going.  The last time I did that, I heard him going, but it didn't sound like anything was hitting the water in the toilet.  Let's just say his aim was a little off.  Maybe we need to throw cheerios in the toilet again, for target practice.

 

I'm sure it's payback for me laughing at a friend of mine whose son was training last year.  He had a tendency to "mark his territory" whenever he was going to the bathroom - even at our house.  Needless to say, I keep the bathroom pretty clean out of necessity since Little Man is still working to improve his aim.  Which is ironic since I don't like to clean.

 

But just the other day, I didn't stay by the door.  He has closed it so he could have his privacy and I was sitting on the couch playing solitaire.  I heard the toilet flush, he stepped out, closed the door loudly behind him and pronounced to the world "I'm a BIG boy!"

 

I laughed.

 

So it goes, so it goes.  

 

He stole a pancake

Sunday morning, something funny happened in a not-so-funny way.  The kids were eating pink  pancakes (I made extra pink pancakes on Saturday so they could also have some on Sunday) and I was downstairs catching up on my emails while they ate.  I usually get a good 5-10 minutes uninterrupted, depending on what they're eating.

  

Monkey has this habit of getting up in the middle of breakfast and dashing to the bathroom.  One would think that she would get that bit of business taken care of beforehand, but not so.

 

She came back to the table (after cleaning up, of course) and I hear, "Little Man!"

 

Monkey walked downstairs, calling for me, and I could tell by her tone that she was barely holding it together.  

 

"What's up?"  I ask, thinking any number of things that Little Man could have done.

 

"Little Man ate my last bite of pancakes,"

 

"Really?  He really did that?"  This was not on my list of things that Little Man could have done.

 

"Yeah, he really did."

 

Oh man, what to do.  Well, he can't really give it back, now can he?  So we go upstairs and have as reasonable a conversation as anyone can with a 3 year old about how it's not nice to take food from another person's plate, not even his sister.

 

But I have to wonder if she'll be leaving her plate of pancakes unprotected again.

 

 

worthless

Today is going to be a worthless day.

 

Little Man decided he would try and wake up the entire house at 4:00 am.  By screaming and crying and moving things around to get to his lamp so he could turn the light on.  He knows that screaming will get me up and he thought it was playtime.

 

I could hear him banging around trying to climb on top of the clothes hamper to get to the lamp.  The way our house is laid out, his room is right next to ours, sharing a wall.  When I went in to check on (scold, yell, whatever) him, he was stuck inside with the lid crumpled around him.  

 

I put him in bed and took the hamper out of the room.

 

Not more than one minute later, I hear more banging around.  Hoping it would go away, I rolled over.  Then I heard it again.  So I get up.  This time his light is on.  What the?  He had gotten the two stools out of the bathroom to his room and stacked them up so he could reach the lamp.

 

Too tired and irritable to admire his resourcefulness, I turned off his lamp and carried the stools back to the bathroom.  Told him to stay in bed; it's too early to get up; everyone is trying to sleep, then crawled back into my own bed.  Trey is grumbling, too, by the way.  This back-and-forth thing had been going on for about 15 minutes and we both had been up to try and get the boy in bed.

 

Before my head hit the pillow, I hear Little Man carrying the stools again (he bangs them against the wall as he's moving them).  Stubborn little bugger, that one.  So I get the stools and hide one in the tub, behind the shower curtain, and the other in our room, next to the hamper.  Get him in bed.  Get myself in bed. 

 

Then I hear him trying to get in our room (our door sticks, so it's not an easy thing to just walk in when it's closed).  I don't really remember how many times this happened - at least twice because both Trey and I got up.  When Trey went in there, the last time as it happened, he was in there for a little bit longer.  I could hear him talking to Little Man but I have no idea what he said.  It must have worked because we never heard another peep out of him.  This was around 4:30 am or so.

 

It's a good thing, too, because I was composing in my head the ebay listing for "one cute little three year old boy that won't let me sleep." 

 

Little Man

I have to tell some stories on my son.  The last few days have been kinda funny with him around and I just want to share.  Then it'll be Monkey's turn, just to be fair, because when you have two children, there's a law somewhere that says what you do with/for one you must do with/for the other.

  

About three weeks ago or so, we brought home the Christmas tree.  Naturally, the children loved it.  And they played with it while we were still setting it up.  Even the netting that the store wrapped the tree in became something of a toy for Little Man as he would wrap up his security blankets in it.  While I was gone for pizza, though, something must have happened to The King because when I got back and we moved the tree to it's permanent location, Little Man was distraught that The King was under the tree.  He wasn't.  And he wasn't in the trash, tangled up with the netting.  The King was lost.  As any parent can tell you, toys of this great importance must never be lost.  But we couldn't find the King.  

 

Christmas came and went.  Little Man got a small tractor from Grandma.  Trey was playing with Little Man and "tipped" the tractor.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.  Anyway, watching Little Man later, he tipped the tractor all on his own, with McQueen or Mater doing the work and waiting the few seconds before sounding the "toot" at the end.  Very cute.  Little Man also scored big with Chick Hicks.  This was the one thing he kept asking for and he got the green one and the Dinoco blue one.  Not long after opening all his presents - the same day in fact - the green Chick Hicks got lost, too.  Tragic, I tell you.  I wasn't as concerned about finding Chick.  With all the toys and such scattered about the house with abandon, I knew Chick would show up.

 

The day after Christmas, I was determined to take down the tree.  I took off the ornaments and boxed them up.  I coiled up all the lights and put them away.  I examined the tree to make sure there weren't any ornaments left behind.  Then I saw it.  Along the bottom of the tree, tucked way back in the branches, was Chick Hicks.  I took it back to Little Man and he giggled his cute little giggle.  When I went back to the tree to finish checking the branches, there was The King.  Tucked in just a little bit further and around the side.  Now Little Man's world was complete.

  

On Saturday, we had a beautiful, spring-like day.  It's been raining a lot lately, and while I know we need the rain, we also need sunny days to get the kids out and about.  Well, we headed to a park with the puppy in tow.  I figured he needed an outing, too.  At the last minute, I decided to try out the dog park nearby.  It was a great idea.  Unless you take into account all the MUD!  And all the dogs.  Actually, it wasn't so bad - the puppy loved it! - but within 5 minutes of being there, Little Man got tackled by another over-enthusiastic dog and got covered in mud.  He didn't like that much.  Mud was all over his face, hands, in his hair.  And he cried.  I took him to the car and cleaned him up and settled him down.  We went back in and watched Monkey play fetch with a sweet old mix named Bear.  Little Man, of course, had to try.  There were altercations, mistakes were made, feelings were hurt, then Little Man spotted another ball and made a dash for it.  So did the same dog that tackled him before.  As you can imagine, there was another collision.  More mud.  More tears.  But he got over it a little more quickly this time.  We stayed a while longer then headed home.  Needless to say, we'll take the pup back (he was good and tired) but it'll be after some of the mud dries up.

 

Th-th-th-th-that's all folks!  I'll be back later with more stories and random musings, but I have a long list of chores awaiting me and I must get to it.

 

Our baby story-part six

photo by *spud* 

 

  I'm typing this up the same day as part five because tomorrow is Little Man's birthday, as well as his best buddy, WB.  We have a combined total of 4 hours of birthday parties and probably won't have time to post the final part of my series tomorrow morning.  Thank you for staying with me and allowing me to share our story with you.

 

After Little Man was born, we got a quick peak at him before the nurses whisked him away to the NICU.  He was so tiny!  But so long!  And so beautiful.  Trey was torn between staying with me and following Little Man to the NICU.  I told him to go with the baby, I would be fine.  My doula came in to keep me company while they were finishing the surgery.  There's nothing weirder than being awake and aware that your innards are on display to a whole surgical team.  Truly.

 

Naturally, it took me some time to recover from my surgery.  By the time I was able to see Little Man again, he had been in this world for more than five hours.  He was under a heat lamp (I know there is a technical name for it, but I don't know what) since he was unable to control his own body temp.  And he had all these lines and tubes and things hooked up to him, feeding him, helping him breathe, checking his blood pressure.  He looked so fragile and helpless and I couldn't hold him like I wanted to.  According to the nurses, though, he was doing just fine, and I couldn't really do anything, so I went back to my recovery room.

 

My doctor thought that my blood pressure would improve as soon as Little Man was born.  It didn't.  It remained on the low end of high, but somewhat controlled under the medication.  Then one day, while my friend who was keeping Monkey brought her (and her own kids) for a quick visit with me and Trey, the machine monitoring my BP started alarming.  We looked at it and it was something like 210/150.  I swear.  Things started moving rapidly, as they had just before my surgery.  My family and friends were ushered out of the room.  I was being moved to a room closer to the nurse's station and they were going to give me something called a Magnesium Sulfate drip to try and bring down my BP.  I thought my freak-out meter was pegged before, but this just completely broke the meter.  

 

Friends, let me explain something to you.  Words cannot adequately describe what I went through.  That Magnesium Sulfate stuff beat me down like nothing ever has before.  It's administered through an IV, in my hand, and a nurse has to monitor me very closely.  And it burns.  And I don't mean a little uncomfortable kind of burning.  I mean my body was on fire from the inside out.  I could feel it traveling up my hand and through my arm.  I could think of nothing else.  Not my kids, not my husband, not Christmas, nothing for however long I was on it.  All of my focus was on not completely freaking the shit out and ripping all the wires from my body and leaving the hospital.

 

I have no idea how long it lasted.  12 hours is a good guess because I remember being miserable all night long.  When the MagSulf finally worked it's way out of my body, I slept.  For 24 hours, in the same position.

 

After that, everything returned to "normal."  My BP was down and controllable by oral medications.  I recovered from the surgery and went home.  Little Man had to stay at the hospital.  Trey had to head back out of town to continue his training and I tried to go about taking care of Monkey, finish my Christmas shopping and getting the house ready for Little Man.  Thank goodness a bassinet from Trey's sister had arrived just recently.

 

Little Man spent a total of 24 days in the hospital.  He was off everything except the nasal tube feeding by the first few days and slowly progressed to different beds as his ability to regulate his temperature grew.  By the time he was discharged, he weighed in at a whopping 4 pounds and 13.4 ounces.  He was so tiny, when he wasn't sleeping in his bassinet in our bedroom, he was sleeping in a laundry basket in our living room.

 

But he grew and grew and grew.  You would never know, to look at him now, that his start was so rocky.  He's barely on the Almighty Growth Curve, but at least he's on it (he wasn't for two years).  He runs and plays and fights with his sister and his best full-term buddy and he can hold his own.  

 

I'm so excited to share this day - his day - with him; my Little Man.

 

Our baby story-part five

I was being induced.  

 

I was being induced?  Here?  Now?  

 

No, this can't be.  There's just too much going on right now.  I don't have time for this!  Trey isn't even in town.  He's FOUR hours away.  I have two parties to do for Pampered Chef.  I haven't even finished my Christmas shopping!  My baby shower isn't until Saturday!  Wait - this is too soon, right?  What about the baby?  Will he survive?  He's not due for another 6 weeks!  No way you're inducing me now.  It's just not feasible.  Nope, there has to be another solution.

 

All that went through my head in a matter of seconds.  While the doctor was still talking about steroid shots for the baby, my blood pressure, pitocin drips, possible C-Section.

 

You know that scratching record sound effect people use on TV when they're "showing" a sudden change of thought?  I heard that in my head when the Doc mentioned C-section.  

 

I snapped my attention back to the present and asked him to repeat himself with the c-section part.  You see, dear readers, I did NOT under any circumstances want a c-section.  My doctor knew this.  In fact, he was the MD of a birthing center, where they have mid-wives and such, which is one of the reasons why I chose him.  Sure, I wanted to have the baby in a hospital, but under my own power, so to speak.  Plus, my father had open-heart surgery several years back, contracted MRSA, and it took him six months, plus another surgery to remove the dirty wire, for him to recover.  There was no way I was going under the knife.

 

But I also wasn't going to risk the health of the baby, so I agreed after he assured me they would do everything possible to avoid the c-section.

 

The next several hours crawled by.  I never did get to eat dinner because of the induction.  I contacted Trey and he thought he would be able to get out of training to come back home, but he had to wait until the next day to talk to the powers that be.  I called my doula and told her what was happening.  I called my girlfriend who was keeping Monkey, found consultants to do my parties for me, called my parents to give them updates, called Trey's parents to give them updates.  Then I proceeded to "rest."  Not really, but I guess you can call it that.

 

The blood pressure cuff kept going, every 15 minutes.  Oh, how I hated that thing.   I still could not move from my left sided position on the bed.  Skipping ahead to the next morning, they started the drip.  Contractions began and the baby monitor beeped.  Nurses came and went.  Everything proceeded slowly.  Almost too slowly.  Trey finally arrived and it was around lunchtime.  Somewhere along the way I got an epidural.  The doula tried massaging my feet and back but my prone position was just miserable.  Think about it.  Have you ever laid  in the same position for 15 hours?  

 

However, I was not progressing enough in my labor for the doctor's satisfaction.  Our baby's heart rate started dropping.  My blood pressure remained high.  Trey had left the hospital for something - I don't remember what, lunch maybe?  But naturally, right after he left, the doctor came in and told me that there had to be an emergency c-section.  The baby's heart rate was just dropping too low.

 

My freak-out meter pegged.  I was terrified, going into surgery without my husband.  Would he be back in time?  Was he going to miss the birth of our baby??  My doula called him as they whisked me off to the surgery room, then she joined me so I wouldn't be alone.  Trey showed up while they were prepping me and hovered by my head.  He wiped tears from my face and talked to me.  I have no idea what he was telling me, but it was comforting hearing his voice.  I tried really hard not to listen to the doctor and nurses.  I'm sure it didn't take long, less than 30 minutes from start to finish, I think, but it seemed like hours. 

 

Then Little Man was born.  33 1/2 weeks early.  3 pounds 10 ounces and 17 inches long.  

  

Our baby Story - part four

To those of you who are just joining us, the beginning starts here.  

 

Here are some random facts that go along with this story.  Three years ago today was a Sunday.  Trey was a student and the phase of training he was in took him to another part of Oklahoma.  We decided it would be best for me and the kids to stay in the town where we had a network of friends already established, plus Monkey had preschool.  He would only be working out of town for a few months and would be home on weekends.  No big deal.   

 

Three years ago, I was still selling Pampered Chef.  I had two parties left to do before the holidays.  I've always been a last minute shopper for Christmas and hey, I still had two weeks!  I also had my baby shower to look forward to.

 

None of that really mattered in the long run.  On December 12th, a Monday, Trey left to head out of town.  It was a four hour drive, so he left early.  I went about my normal routine during the day and then took Monkey over to a friend's house because I had my weekly doctor appointment that afternoon.

 

When they checked my blood pressure, it was something like 180/120.  On medication.  The nurse had me go lie down for a while and see if it would come down any.  It didn't.  They checked it four or five times.  The doctor would come in and out of the room checking on me and the baby to see how we were.  Finally, he told me he was sending me to the hospital to see if they could help bring down my blood pressure.  He was all calm about it, but my freak-out meter started climbing, just a little.  Then he tells me to pack an overnight bag, "just in case."

 

Ummm.... Okay....

 

He told me to go straight home, to get my bag, then straight to the hospital.  My freak-out meter started climbing even more.  As I was driving, I called my friend who was keeping Monkey.  Thank God for good friends.  She was totally cool with Monkey hanging out with her kids, for however long necessary.  

 

I called Trey, but he was already in class and couldn't answer.  I left a message trying really hard not to sound frantic, but just to, you know, say "honey, they're sending me to the hospital..."  I called my mom.  Her freak-out meter starting climbing really fast.  I called my dad.  I called everyone I knew, it seemed.  When I got home, I grabbed clothes, a book, music, and my paperwork for my parties.  Just in case.

 

When I got to the hospital, I went straight to a room and they put on the pressure cuff and had me lie on my left side.  My blood pressure was still high.  I lay there for what seemed like hours and the only way to keep it on the low end of high was to stay on my left side.  I couldn't even move to my back or my BP would spike.   My freak out meter got even higher.  Nurses would come and go.  Finally, my doctor came in.  It was sometime after dinner and not only were pressure sores forming on my left hip, but I was hungry, too.

 

He starts talking to me about my BP and how they can't seem to get it down.  The only thing they can do now is try and induce me. 

 

Ummm.... Okay....  I'm thinking he's talking about in a couple of weeks.  Nope.

 

My due date was January 20th and they were inducing me on December 13th.

Our Baby Story - part three

photo by Mrs. Flinger.

 

 I think I missed a detail yesterday.  I was laying in bed at 4am this morning (just after Little Man came to wake me up for more water) trying to remember when we first went to the perinatologist in Oklahoma City (which is not where we lived).  I believe it was just a week or so after my 19 week ultrasound that was inconclusive.  So we traveled to OKC to have one of those really cool 4D ultrasounds.

 

When we arrived, they first took a family history and did a little genetic counseling.  Then we did a normal ultrasound to get measurements again.  They were laying their own foundation for my progress.  Again, it was inconclusive.  The only thing they could say for sure is that even though the fetus was growing, he was still a week or two behind based on my conception and due dates.  Even though my blood pressure was high, but controlled with medicine, everything looked good.

 

Even when they did the 4D ultrasound - which is really cool, by the way - they couldn't confirm whether or not our son had DS.  They, too, advised doing an amniocentesis to know for sure, but at 20 weeks, there is a risk of miscarriage or early delivery and chances are the baby wouldn't survive.  So we opted to wait.  And no one was sticking a needle that big into my belly.  I was to come back in 8 weeks for another ultrasound and see if there were any changes.

 

The next two months were the longest of my life.  My blood pressure was still high, but no other signs of preclamsia showed up.  Everything else progressed normally, if you want to call it that.  Around 28 weeks we went back to OKC for our next ultrasound.

 

Again, nothing conclusive except the size of the baby being smaller than expected.  So we opt to do the amnio.  I never really saw the needle - if I had, I'm sure I would have passed out - but Trey saw it.  He said it was huge.  I think I tried to squeeze off the fingers of his hand that I was holding.  All things considered, it wasn't really that bad.  But then there was waiting for the results.

 

I have no idea how long we waited.  I'm sure it was days, it may have been one day or five days, but I got the call at work.  Deep breath, everything is normal.  I had to ask the nurse to repeat herself.  No Downs Syndrome, or any other genetic problems for that matter.  And he was definitely a boy.

 

I never realized the weight that had been on my shoulders until it was gone.

 

But she wasn't done.  The size of the fetus was still a concern, so they wanted me back in a week or so for another ultrasound.  They wanted to make sure it wasn't my blood pressure or anything that was keeping the baby from growing any faster than he was.

 

Over the next few weeks, I went to OKC twice, I think.  Once for an ultrasound, once for an extended stress test on the baby.  Even though he was only about 32 weeks old, and small, his stress test rated him somewhere around a 35 or 36 week old fetus.  I could tell I confused the doctor a bit but he told me that they would recommend inducing me around 37 weeks because of my BP.

 

Turns out, I didn't have to wait that long.

 

Our Baby Story - part two

photo by memekode

   

"You tested positive for Downs Syndrome."

 

Everything kinda went hazy.  The nurse went on talking about moving up my next ultrasound, the one normally scheduled for about 25 weeks to around 19 weeks.  Numbly, I agreed.  But wait - I had questions.  Why the ultrasound?  

 

They can take measurements of the baby, look for benchmarks, she explained to me.  Oh.  Okay.  I still felt like I wasn't getting it.  But I acted as though I understood everything she was telling me.  As soon as she got off the phone,  I sat down and finished my lunch.  Keep it together, I kept telling myself.  You're at a Wendy's for goodness sake!  You can't fall apart here.

 

I couldn't contact Trey because he was working.  I was on my own until he called me.  Sorry, people, but the details of the next few days were a little fuzzy, I hope you understand.  It was like I was in a fog.  I remember calling a dear friend of mine back in NC who has a son with Downs.  They have a daughter, too, a year younger than Monkey, without Downs, so I wanted to know what happened.  

 

I had a long conversation with them, first with Diane, then with Chris, and they even offered to give me some of their frequent flyer miles to bring me to Duke University.  Have I mentioned that I have really good friends?  Chris, I believe it was, told me that the odds of the DS part of the test being correct vs. incorrect are about the same as flipping a coin.  The other parts of the test, for the more serious, life-threatening diseases are much more accurate which is why they still do the tests.  The same thing had happened with their daughter.  Her test had come back positive for DS, too, but she doesn't have it.  

 

I can't speak for Trey.  He was working and in school and was focusing on that.  Internalizing, compartmentalizing the struggle with whether or not our son had DS.  I was up late at night.  I would wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and get online and research.  I looked at reports, published ultrasound pictures.  I learned about measuring the nuchal fold and the lengths of the femur bones and something to do with the nose.  

 

Finally the day came for the next ultrasound.  Trey came with me; Monkey was at preschool.  The ultrasound technician was very nice and we chatted.  I remember he was a traveler, meaning he would work at a location for a few months to cover an open position, then move on.  At the time, my mom was, too, so we talked about some of the places he has worked.  I watched the images flicker on the screen.  The black, white and grey images that had become my late-night obsession.   The magic of an ultrasound is lost when you're trying to verify a genetic disease.

 

The only thing the ultrasound could confirm was that the fetus was a little smaller than my gestational time showed and that the fetus was most likely a boy.  The tech even showed us the "turtle" sign.

 

So, at 19 weeks, we still don't know if he has DS or not.  The only way now to confirm is to do an amniocentesis or wait 8 more weeks and do another ultrasound.  There was no way anyone was sticking a needle in my belly, so we waited.

 

And my blood pressure started creeping up.

Our Baby story - part one

photo by Josh Parrish

 

  In celebration of my son's birthday, I'm writing about the.... adventures... surrounding my pregnancy with him and his birth.  If you already know the story, I'm sorry if I bore you.  If you don't know the story, I'm sorry if I bore you.  Blame Blogger Dad because I got the idea from him.

 

We were living in Oklahoma at the time.  It was hot and miserable and windy.  Did I mention windy?  I have a horrible memory but I remember a few things about when I told Trey I was pregnant.  He was out cutting the grass and looking miserable.  I went outside and waited to catch his eye.  He was too focused on what he was doing, trying to get it done quickly because, as I said, it was hot and miserable and windy.  I couldn't wait.  I yelled.  He looked up, irritated that I had interrupted but I waved him over anyway.  I think I also bribed him with cold water.

 

I didn't say anything, I just showed him the test.  He broke into a wide smile and hugged me, covered in sweat and dirt and grass clippings.  It was gross.  But we were excited and we celebrated that night with a nice dinner.  We didn't say anything to Monkey, yet.

 

The first 5 or 6 weeks were long for us.  I had an early miscarriage just before we moved to OK, so we were nervous about this one.  I went for my doctor's appointment and they did bloodwork to check my levels.  They said I was pregnant.  I explained to the doctor my concern about actually seeing the baby (because I had been through the miscarriage) so he was kind enough to do an ultrasound right then.  I saw the little kidney bean with the tiny flicker of a heartbeat.  He said everything looked good.

 

The next several weeks passed without too many incidents.  I didn't have morning sickness in the vomiting-my-guts-up every morning sense, but brushing my teeth was a very difficult thing with all the gagging I was doing.  I'm surprised my teeth survived.  I couldn't drink coffee because it tasted revolting (and I love coffee) and I was tired all the time.  It was nothing for me to fall asleep on the couch after dinner.

 

The only hiccup so far with my appointments was that the doctor couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat with the doppler, so I got an ultrasound at every visit to see the heartbeat.  Then at 15 weeks or so, they did the triple screen blood test.  I didn't think anything of it at the time.  I don't remember how long it was after the test that they called me - if it was a few hours or a couple of days, but I remember I was at Wendy's when I got the call.  I must have had a craving for their french fries.

 

The nurse was going on about the test and although I was paying attention, I was also distracted because I was waiting for my food.  "I'm sorry, could you repeat that last?" I asked her.

 

"You tested positive for Downs Syndrome."