….are on the menu for our homecoming night. I’m too overcome with emotion to say much besides thank you.

She will need surgery within a couple of weeks but she looks great. I have never been happier or more relieved. Vicodin has nothing on this.

Welcome to the world sweet girl. It’s a better place with you here.

It took me all this time to actually log onto my blog after I posted because all of your sweet comments made me weep with appreciation. Amelia is a lucky cookie to have so many virtual friends out there, and I plan to let her know just how fortunate she really is. Because she is.

I’d offer to tongue kiss you all individually, but I’ve been crying all day long and cannot breathe out of my nose any longer so it would be gross. That said, thank you to each and every one of you who prayed for us. Believe it or not, it made today just that much more bearable. And trust me, I needed anything to make today more bearable.

So, WTF, right?

Let me back up a second so you realize how out of left field this whole situation was.

Yesterday, at 4:27 my daughter Amelia was born after about 10 minutes of pushing. Let’s not say a thing about what that means about the state of my girl bits, okay? When she was born, my OB said the words that no one really wants to hear upon pushing out a child: “Becky, it looks like she has some sort of cyst on her head.” Then she called neonatology.

Well, shit. I had an US last week and it wasn’t picked up, so that’s good, right? Her color–despite being covered in cheese–was pink and rosy, she was screaming bloody murder and moving around like no one’s business.

I didn’t catch her Apgars because I was too busy hyperventilating, but I’d assume that they were good. After she was de-cheesed somewhat, she was brought into my shaking arms where she looked around at the world for awhile. Just taking it all in. Before she dived head first into the old boobies for some delicious treats.

The neonatologists ordered a Cat Scan for today and overall seemed remarkably unimpressed by her cyst. Apparently, these things DO happen, and are typically superficial. While the prospect of sending my 10 minute old child into a tube wasn’t exactly my idea of a party, I was somewhat placated by their nonchalant attitude.

Well, Daver and I reasoned, it was a good thing she’d have some hair to cover that up, right?

No big deal.

This morning, after being up half the night in pain and the other half either nursing or throwing things at my snoring husband, my attitude was slightly more nervous. The alternative to having it be a fatty cyst was decidedly less pleasant. It could mean that there was some sort of breakdown in the formation of the skull where some of her brain could be hangin’ out.

While I have frequently been called a “boring” “idiot” by some of my blog trolls–a charge I would not deny, but would plead down to simply obnoxious–I have never exactly had my brain anywhere but firmly inside my skull. Where it belongs.

Around 10:30 this morning, my daughter who had been nursing like a champ (or her brother Alex) was wheeled away from her panicking mother and accompanied by her doting father down to get a picture of her skull. Always the way *I* want to start my day.

Afterward, since no one rushed around yelling “STAT” or even making any sort of big deal out of anything other than my overzealous use of ice packs on my aforementioned girly bits, I began to sort of calm down. She acted just like any other normal baby, and shit, it probably WAS just a fatty cyst. Good thing she’d have some hair to cover it up, right?

I’d claim that the joke was on me, but there was nothing remotely funny about what happened next: the phone rang as I nursed her for the 40th hour that afternoon, and on the other line was her doctor. Begging Dave to talk for me so as not to have to juggle my nursing daughter we got some news. Suddenly, NICU, who I’d had no contact with, was on their way up to take her down. To the NICU.

Down to the NICU for a consult with a pediatric neurosurgeon.

I’ve said before such lofty things as “xxx ranks up there with things I never wanted to say” (xxx being something like, visiting my father in the ICU, the last time I shit my pants, or my favorite Rush song), but nothing could possibly compare to the thought “my daughter’s possible brain surgeon.”

Not only was she not even 24 hours old and not only was this not detected previously, now she’s suddenly in need of a NEUROSURGEON?

F-C-U-K.

No one took the time to explain much of anything, and I was stuck juggling the needs of Alex who misses his mommy desperately and vice versa, but juggling the needs of my new daughter who needs to eat for 50 hours a day. So Dave and I did precisely what mature parents do in situations like this: we both flipped the shit out.

And continued to do so until about an hour ago when, discussing the MRI that the neurosurgeon ordered for tomorrow morning with one of the NICU nurses, it came out that the ped was being cautious (= good), that Amelia was looking awesome (=good), and that our worst case scenario (death, major brain surgery) was probably a little drastic (= extra good).

Music to our addled ears.

Whatever may or may not be in the cyst (fluid, fat OR the ever popular BRAIN) is “small” and the neuro was so unconcerned that he won’t be around until tomorrow to read the MRI/CT SCAN results.

More music to our ears.

While we’re certainly not out of any woods yet, nor do we have anything really specific as a diagnosis or treatment plan, this is certainly better than things appeared to be this afternoon. I will continue to worry, stress, and pray, but I’m feeling slightly better. So is The Daver.

Please, if I haven’t already asked enough of you all already, could you do whatever it is that you do tomorrow that my wee daughter will check out to be more fine than not? If you do, I’ll give you pictures (just as soon as I figure out how to do so on Daver’s lappy).

I’m off to try and con a sleeping pill from a nurse and hopefully conk some zzz’s before Amelia comes back for more boob time. I can’t wait to see her again. She’s just…awesome.

Bad news. We’re off to the NICU for observation. I wish it were me.

Help.

As with anything else, we have hit a snare. On the back of my daughters head is a cyst. It appears fluid-filled but she is due to have a cat scan in an hour.

I’m terrified.

Amelia Grace Sherrick Harks
4:27pm, January 28, 2009
7lbs, 13oz.
21″ long

Baby and Dad are doing just fine.

Mom is still an asshole.

My two stipulations for birth are this:

1) More narcotics than you can shake a stick at

2) Plenty of “Eye of the Tiger” during pushing said middle-nameless crotch parasite out.

It’s entirely likely that I will be denied #1 due to the hungry gleam in my eyes that makes doctors uncomfortable because it screams “ADDICT,” and I’ll probably forget to put on the “Eye of the Tiger” at the appropriate time, but who cares?

Birth is the first in a long line of things about parenthood that you have no control over, so why not embrace it?

That said, I’m dying for something to take my mind off of the impending birth, so let’s run a contest and see who can guess correctly what Amelia will measure. I’m sure I’ll be late in awarding prizes, but you know, better late than never, right Coco?

The stats for my two other kids:

Ben: 7 pounds 13 oz, 19 inches long

Alex: 7 pounds 10 oz, 20 inches long

Amelia: ?????

Oh, and for my commentor J, who wanted proof that my feet don’t always look like the monstrosity that they currently are, here is a picture from when I busted my foot back in June. Please don’t mind my lack of pedicure, because I sure as shit don’t.

Amelia is scheduled to make her debut on Wednesday and I am crapping myself with glee. Here’s to hoping that she’s not full of woe like the poem says.

I could not be happier unless it was scheduled for tomorrow.

But sadly, these are not the pictures that I wish I were showing you right now. Instead, you get a first hand view of how sad my feet are. The rest of me is sort of swelly, but nothing is as bad as my feet. These pictures should be considered free birth control for teens.

I must add one thing before I let the spirit take you. I specifically got tattoos on my feet so that they did NOT swell and stretch during pregnancy. It appears as though the joke is, as per usual, on me.

Also, yes, that is bruising that you can see. And that IS hair that you see. I’m terrified that my feet might esplode if I get a razor near them. And my idea of a pre-labor pedicure has gone out the window because I am afraid to show people my feet. Except for YOU, Internet. Because I love you THAT much.

And of course…

Quick now, before you vomit into your keyboard and send me a bill for a new one!! CUTE OVERLOAD!! PUPPIES!!

Can I bother you to say a quick prayer or do whatever it is that you people do around 1PM when I’m meeting with my MD and trying to talk him into putting me out of my misery? Dave and Ben and Alex would all appreciate it. And, of course, then there will be squishy baby pictures abounding rather than photos of my disgusting feeties.

On Monday, after spending the day trying to run all those annoying errands before this baby makes her debut, I went to soak in the bathtub (why yes, I do like hygiene!). When I got to the part in which I typically huff and puff and moan and groan shamefully to pull off my shoes and socks I noticed something terrifying.

In the space between that morning and that late afternoon, my feet had ballooned into a ridiculous caricature of themselves. I’d call them “clown feet” but it wouldn’t do them justice. They were a freak show, plain and simple.

So after my brief soak in the tub, I reluctantly put a call into my OB’s office to let them know. To me, as a nurse, sudden swelling = bad news, especially since I didn’t swell with my last pregnancy (I did turn into the Michelin Man during my pregnancy with Ben, but in my defense, it was a ridiculously hot August and now, well, it’s one of the coldest January’s on record).

The nurse, in typical “It’s about to be my time to leave and I don’t particularly want to deal with you” fashion, told me to drink fluids, lay on my left side and rest as much as possible. Fine advice that I readily took. I also had a BP cuff in hand, so I knew my BP was fine, so I let her go.

The following day, after following her orders as best as a person with small kids and needy dogs can do, I realized something fierce: not only had my swelling not decreased, it had gotten worse. My injured foot ached and I could no longer wear the shoes I’d put on the day before.

So I called the nurse back, reluctantly, and by some stroke of luck got one of the smart ones on the line. After explaining the situation, she agreed that this was cause for concern and went off to consult the doctor.

Who insisted I head to the hospital for monitoring. No big deal, right? They’ll do a HELLP panel, check my pee, give me an NST and let me go the hell home. Awesome. I called The Daver to head home so that he could bring me as there was no way in hell I was going to sit and stare at hospital walls alone. Misery does love company, right?

By the time we got to the hospital, they–of course–had no record of me coming in, so I was hooked up to the monitor while we waited and waited for the MD to call back with orders. This was a foreboding omen of The Ghosts Of Christmas Future.

Amelia looked excellent and my HELLP panel was passable–low platelets are apparently something I’ve been suffering from since the beginning–with my liver enzymes nice and low.

My pee, however, had ketones a-plenty. And this is where I made my fatal error.

Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it….

When the nurse, whom I loved and wanted to make out with because she was so damn competent, presented this to me, I said this and regretted it almost immediately: “Oh, yeah, well, my Crohn’s is flaring up and I literally cannot digest food right now. It comes right back out.”

*smacks head*

So she, being diligent as ever, reports this to my doctor (one of about 4,000 OB’s in my practice. Consider this my second bout of foreshadowing into Mistakes I’ve Loved And Lost) who then, assuming I have a virus, wants to keep me overnight for fluids.

Fuck. If there’s any place I’d rather not be, it’s in a hospital bed, chained to an IV.

(also: why he thought “virus” I’m not sure. Last I checked, viruses don’t last for years. At least, not gastroenteritis)

But fine, I said, being the Model of Compliant Patient that I so obviously am. I’ll stay the night, get some fluids and get discharged first thing in the morning.

Also: hahahahahahaha!

The floor is bumping with people who’d been bumping uglies about 9 months ago, so I’m moved to this pathetic armpit of a room typically used for outpatient testing. I’m horrified to note that there’s a second bed in this wee room, but am relieved for the moment that it’s empty.

Bribed with the promise of an Ambien in my future, I lay down in bed to wait for my IV. Over the next 12 hours, I get bag after bag after bag of fluids, when I finally realize that I haven’t peed hardly at all. I look down at my feet, the initial reason for my arrival on the unit, and am horrified to see that they’ve gotten somehow bigger. BECAUSE I AM NOW THIRD SPACING EVERY SINGLE DROP OF FLUID PUSHED INTO ME.

Awesome.

While this concerned me because now I had stumps where my legs had once been, fairly useless ones at that, no one else seemed to care. Everyone was far, far more concerned about my guts. This amused me to no end since this is slightly worse than normal, but still well within the realm of Everyday Annoyances for me.

My amusement, the following morning after sleeping for approximately 6 minutes of the night, is quickly dampened by the fact that my OB (again, one I haven’t met) wanted me to have a GI consult come in and take a peek at me. While I have no issues with GI MD’s in general, I’ve grown pretty damn tired of hearing other doctors tell me these two things:

1) We’re not sure it’s Crohn’s

AND

2) There’s nothing we can do for you right now.

Fucking sweet. I haven’t been hearing that since I was 4 minutes pregnant and in the ER after falling down my stairs or anything.

But again, in the name of being somewhat compliant, I agreed to this. The nurse tells me that the GI should be in around noonish. Fine. Daver was lovingly back by my side and we sat together, staring at the clock for the next 3-4 hours.

We still had only heard through nurses what my OB wants to do and are starting to wonder if this all isn’t turning into a gigantic game of telephone. I’m starting to wonder if I might, instead of a GI, be consulted by a doctor to give me both a sex change and a boob job. The boob job I’d handle, but I’m not certain how much I want a penis, hilarious antics aside.

All that I do know is that the hours are ticking by at a snails pace, I’m not being monitored for much at all, and my feet are ballooning to comical proportions. The dayside nurse who has been assigned to me is easily one of the duller crayons in the box and she has made it completely apparent that she not only has no idea WHAT to do with me as I’m not in labor, she also doesn’t care. She’s the kind of nurse that gives other nurses a bad name.

Sometime after 3 PM, the GI MD gives me a call to chat with me as to what’s going on with me, as he’s on the way to some medical emergency somewhere else. In his favor, he has an incredibly charming accent (I’m a huge sucker for accents). Counting against him is the fact that he’s not going to be available for quite awhile longer.

Some of that fluid accumulating in me is now released in the form of tears. Under the best of circumstances, I’m an ugly crier, and under these, I’m snotting all over myself, Daver and my sad hospital pillow. I’ve not slept, I still can’t keep a damn thing in my body, so my blood sugar is plummeting, and I’m frustrated beyond belief.

The sitting around and waiting I could just as easily do at home and as far as dealing with PinHead, RN, I could call my MD’s office and try to talk to one of the nurses there (I need to clarify that not ALL of the nurses are idiots, lest you think I’m being bigoty). But I made the fatal assumption that the MD would be there around 5 PM, so a couple of extra hours? We could handle it.

But by 5PM, he meant closer to 7:30 PM and by this time I was nearly out of my mind with exhaustion and frustration. No one even attempts to give me a straight answer and I seem to have fallen off the radar of the staff who are dealing with laboring patients. While I want to be all Goodly and stuff and be all “well, they’re busy” the attention I wasn’t getting was absurd. I’ve worked L and D, and I’ve never seen anything so devoid of patient care.

For serious.

But, at about 7:30, the GI MD rolled in and one of the first things out of his mouth after making the obligatory introductions was this:

“I’m not convinced you have Crohn’s.” Suddenly, his accent is stunningly less charming than mere moments before.

Now, I’m aware of this, Patient Reader, and have done the tests that I am able to do while pregnant to ascertain what it is that I do have (hint: it’s not a virus). I’m still waiting on the results of the insane tests that I had drawn a couple of months ago (damn you holiday schedules!) and other than calling it Crohn’s, I’m not sure what else TO call it.

Trust me, I’d be thrilled if it weren’t Crohn’s, providing that there was SOMETHING to be done about it. I won’t be even remotely depressed to learn that it’s NOT.

If I hadn’t been so obviously in distress, I would have found it funny, the ways in which pretty much every member of the hospital staff then had to come in and remind me that I might not have Crohn’s. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a chorus line of male doctors come in with their penises dancing to “We’re Not Sure It’s Crohn’s” in the tune of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

Everyone from Laundry Services to the Candy Stripers had to come in and “break” this to me. Eventually, rather than trying to explain myself, I remained mute when confronted with this. Like the whole thing with my mother and my mother-in-law who constantly remind me that their husbands never did any baby care, I became at somewhat of a loss as to what to say.

Really, how do you respond to this? What response did they want from me? Because I’m pretty sure I didn’t give the proper one, lest someone actually care about what medically IS going on with me rather than focusing on what might not be. And if it’s bad enough to make me stay overnight, why doesn’t someone look for a cure instead of pointing out something that cannot be currently proved or disproved?

And for the love of Sweet Baby Jesus, why doesn’t anyone talk to me instead of making me feel like a naughty child who has been caught in a lie?

I caught one of my nurses patently lying to my OB, telling him that I was “feeling better” and had “eaten well,” after she’d berated me for not eating. She, of course, got the tail end of my Bitch Stick and was promptly informed of the error of her ways.

The following day after another night of minimal sleep, my amnio loomed large and began to make me quiver with fear. I have an intense fear of the unknown, and while my pain tolerance is pretty amazing, I had nothing with which to compare this to. Was it as bad as a spinal tap? A colonoscopy? Having to listen to the Facts Of Life Song on repeat?

When I was finally summoned and laying on the table, my belly slathered in iodine, I learned one thing about having an amnio: it feels just like you think it would. Honestly, it’s totally like what you’d think one would feel like. Unpleasant, creepy, slightly painful, and not over remotely soon enough.

But one must do what one must do, so back to our closet–now with bonus roommate!–we waited for the results. And when we learned that they were positive for well developed wee lungs, we began to talk of inductions with the OB, whom we have now seen in the flesh for the first time in 3 days.

We learn quickly that he no longer wants to keep us there for now, that we can go! home! as my cervix hasn’t been briefed on anything (oh, and by the way, you might not have Crohn’s!). Rather than stay and fight for a section, we get the hell outta Dodge with vague promises of coming back for RhoGam (in the hospital, even if you are COMPLETELY aware of your Rh- status, you must be type crossed and matched before they’ll give you the shot. That’s your insurance dollars hard at work, people) that evening.

Never, ever has a hospital parking lot looked so beautiful as it did that night on our way home.

I’m going back to the MD tomorrow at 1, and I’m planning to insist on getting this baby out and safe and then getting back to feeling like a human being again. I have my serious doubts as to whether or not it will work, but I’m planning on kicking and screaming and generally making a scene until I get booted from the office by security.

Sadly, it is my duty to report to you that I am still pregnant. Sadly for my feet and mental status. The baby seems perfectly happy sitting pretty in her watery home. I, of course, am not so happy.

I have an excellent story for you all, but in between icing my feet and trying to prepare my house for this baby, it’s going to have to wait. I guess the advantage of being a first-time parent is that you might have actually prepared something in advance, whereas we, well, haven’t. I have a bunch of baby stuff and yet she has nowhere set up to sleep.

Kinda like me!

I have an MD appointment on Monday to discuss induction and cervixes and stuff, and I’ve been loading up on Evening Primrose Oil up the pooter in addition to making Daver have what can only be called Mercy Sex. But if Monday is anything like the 3 days I spent in the hospital, I’ll get absolutely nowhere quickly. So my hopes aren’t exactly sky-high.

Be back soon with my promised story.