The unexpected 2WW

Thanks for all the good vibes for the results of the amnio. However, some people had suggested to me that only waiting a week for the results seemed like a short amount of time.

Indeed, it is. One of the doctors in the room told me that we could expect an early result in one day and the definitive result in a week. Noooo.......not really. After about a week (this past Tuesday) I called the office and asked about my results. The nice nurse on the phone told me that she did have the early test results, but the final results would take, yes, at least two weeks. So that doctor was obviously not a research scientist; I am, however, and I feel that I should have figured something was up. Nevermind that I work with yeast and not humans....

Anywho, the results of the early test were very encouraging. Both babies have the normal # of chromosomes at first glance (yay for 46 chromosomes). [Just to show you how non-human-centric I am: I had to look that up. at first I was going to write 16 (# of chromsomes in budding yeast) and my next guess was 3 (number of chromosomes in fission yeast) and worse than that, these numbers are for hapliod yeast--double sigh.] Next week we should get the final results on the actual human babies I am carrying and not on what I stare at every day.

In other mind-blowing news, my mind is blown. I swear I can actually FEEL my brain cells withering up and dying. Sometimes getting an intellegent sentence out of my mouth is more effort than it is worth. I am considering communicating strictly through grunting now.

This comes at a bad time, as I have quite a lot on my plate work-wise. It seems that this miracle of a pregnancy will come to an end (I hope) right about at the time that my fellowship runs out at work. This fellowship I have pays for my salary (and my health insurance). I am very fortunate to have it. But when it ends, there is no guarantee of a job. The funding in my lab is quite tight right now, and I have had to have a few uncomfortable conversations with my boss. The conversations go along the line of : " Um, yeah, so my fellowship will be running out at the end of August. I was wondering if you were in a position to keep me on for a while afterwards." Well, I guess that is just my side of the conversation. The answer from my boss is that he just doesn't know right now. We may have a better idea in mid-March when we will meet with a funding agency to see if they think we have made enough progress on our current reasearch to apply for a larger grant which can fund a salary.

To be honest, it is time for me to move on in my career. My post-doc (what you do after grad school when there are no jobs available) will be at the 4 year mark in August (rather typical for a life science post-doc). However, now is not the best time to be searching for a job, what with my scattered brain and this lovey economy. This morning at breakfast, hubby and I had a talk about different options if I cannot stay in my current lab after the babies are born. He brought up getting a job in a bank or mall. I was pretty fabbergasted, I have to say. Not that I have a problem with the work; I've just spent, um, the last 18 (OHMYGOSH) years of my life persuing a career as a research scientist (college + lab tech + grad school +post doc). Well, we'll just have to see what happens in the next few weeks/months....

And here we are

Nothing too much to report here.

I had the amnio last Tuesday, the 17th, not the most painful thing I had been through, but still I wouldn't do it on a whim. I have also decided that I am not a "piercer." I have heard that some people get a real thrill from having piercings or tattoos. I have had more than my fair share of injections and needle pokes to know that I most certainly do not get a thrill from being pierced or poked.

We did have one humorous moment during the amino. I had two doctors in the room with me:one male and one female. The female was guiding the ultrasound to a place where the baby was not, while the male doctor was doing the poking. After the amnio for baby one, I mentioned that I was not surprised by the needle stick, but by the cramping that occured when the needle when into my uterus. The male doctor said that baby one was low in my uterus and that there tended to be more "feeling" there and it could be more painful. The female doctor turned to look straight at me and said, "I have had a few of these, and I don't care where you put the needle, it still cramps." I don't know why I thought that was so funny, but I had to supress my laughter.

No word yet on the results (we are specifically interested in baby 2 as s/he was on the upper end of normal of the nuchal lucency test (sp?). The same male doctor told us that we should have some results the next day. Again, we haven't heard anything yet. So now I refer to the the unborn as "our mutant babies" to my husband. So hopefully we have resuts soon....

Still here

...and still getting over this monster of a cold. This nasty thing has been going around the lab where I work...no one is safe!

But I am getting better and my appetite is increasing, so that is good. In fact, after I finish typing this up, it's time for a snack!

Next week, actually next Tues I go in for the amnio. Am I nervous? Kind of. At this point I'm actually settling into the idea that I'm REALLY pregnant with two babies (and not just getting fat and irritable).

To let you know what leap this is for me, I'll let you know a little secret. I've actually given nicknames to the babies: bit and bot. Not that original, but that is just what keeps coming up in my mind. "Naming" them is a scary proposition for me. Up until this point in my life, I would have always told you I was an optimist. And I am: FOR YOU. Everything WILL work out well for you. Just not for me. Dang, that sounds harsh....

I guess I am still waiting for the proverbial "other shoe to drop." I was hoping that this would cease when I actually got pregnant. Then when I reached the 3 month milestone. Now, I am not sure that it ever will, but I am doing my best not to dwell on it. But I still realize that I keep a "healthy(??)"distance from the pregnancy.
In fact, some baby update-thingy suggested that at 15 weeks you should start talking to the baby to help strengthen the bond between the two of you. I almost passed out. I have only just gotten the courage to give them nicknames, let alone have a conversation with them.

I've always been a late bloomer, perhaps we'll start our "conversations" at little bit later :)

Colds suck

So I've been home for the past two days with a nasty cold. I hardly ever come down with a cold and when I do, its not usually so bad. This one sucks giant donkey ba.lls. Seriously.

I made my first "I'm a silly pregnant woman and don't know what meds I can take" call to the new high risk OB that I went to on Monday. The nurse who took my call gave me some idea of the meds I can take and then pointed me to the packet of info that they gave me at my visit. I almost started laughing when she told me there was ACTUAL information in that packet.

See, I've gotten 3 packets already in this journey of pregnancy. The first one was from the IVF clinic after my positive pregnancy test. The second came from my first OB at the local practice. I was very diligent and read them as soon as I could. Put them in a safe place should I need to refer to them later. This one, not so much. I put it in my backpack (I KNOW, I'm 35 I should not still be wearing a backpack, but with my computer in it, it is just too heavy to carry on one shoulder.) I told myself that I would read it when I had some time. Unfortunately, I left it at work when I came home with the sickness and haven't been back to work to pick it up.

Besides all the coughing, sneezing, stuffy nose, etc. that has been going on, I have to say I like my new OB. (I really liked my other OB, but this guy specializes in premature births, women with multiples, and difficult cesarean sections.) After doing an initial workup with a nurse and her asst., I met with the Dr. He was exceptionally non-plussed at my medical history. In fact, he wondered why the IVF doctor would recommend a reduction when, in his words, "I have had patients that have had their uterus dismantled and completely reconstructed and they didn't have a problem with pregnancy." Nice to hear. Sorry that someone had to go through that, though.

I next meet with him after our amnio on the 17th. Hubby will be there to meet him as well.

Ugh, I would write more, but in that last paragraph, I sneezed 10 times (I counted)! I'm going to bury my head under some pillows now.