Meta: "Like we invented it"

"So ... titles..."
"How about 'Like we invented it'?"
"Ha!"
"Ha!"
...
"Is it too raunchy?"
"Nah."

So our blog title is maybe a little nudge nudge, wink wink. I mean, we are trying to make a baby. But mostly it refers to to the truth that, while we are one couple that will have a specific experience, that experience probably won't be completely unique. Sean and I are by far not the only people out there trying to add a baby to the family and facing some worries on the way. So, we aren't the original inventors of any of this, but in our earnestness (a family characteristic) we may sometimes write like we are.

Song for Maxalt

Da na na na nuh
Woke up this morning
Da na na na nuh
With a migraine
Da na na na nuh
Took a triptan
Da na na na nuh
Went back to bed
Da na na na nuh
B ...
E ...
D ...
Bed.

Sometimes I feel really hopeful about getting my medical act together pre-pregnancy. Not on migraine mornings, when I wake up and reach for a triptan. I try to wake up at the same time every morning and go to bed around the same time each night (that part is more difficult). The only coping strategy I have right now is to take a pill and go back to bed for an hour or two with npr on to make sure I don't sleep all day. This usually results in weird, lost hours of non-sleep and anxiety nightmares mixed with npr stories. Like, this morning, I think I cried a lot at Story Corps but I don't remember the story or whether it really happened at all. I did force myself fully awake when I realized they were interviewing someone about reproductive rights; the interviewee turned out to be one of the people I interviewed for my senior thesis in journalism. Cool!

I'm looking forward to giving up the triptans--they make me dopey, sleepy, grumpy (insert Disney dwarf name here.) This has been "the fix" for so long, though, that I'm nervous about experimenting ... I know from experience what happens when I don't treat or under-treat a migraine, and the best part of it is the long and expensive emergency room visit. Those visits are another reason I'm glad we're figuring this out pre-baby.

My thoughts aren't cohering, I may go back to bed for awhile. Better dreams listening to the Diane Rehm show?

"What maintains one vice would bring up two children."

I'll admit that in all the excitment of the occassion, it took me until just last evening to realize the convenience of a high-volume maternity ward located right in Ben Franklin's house.

Meta: Edit Policy

Annie and I have developed a good writing rapport over the years, we're basically each other's default first-tier editorial team.  This site, however, will largely be a post first, ask questions later endeaver, to minimize impediments to updating.  (This is mostly for my benefit, as history has shown.)  So it may happen that an occassional mispelling* finds its way to your eager browsers and aggregators, only to have mysteriously and inexplicably vanished upon later re-inspection.

Expect larger edits to content or structure to be minimal and accompanied by notification and justification, or (at least) far-fetched excuses.  Fair?

*Obligitory error in post on spelling and grammar

Planning

Sean and I share a passion for planning: on the drive back to school yesterday we planned meals, housing and activities for my parents' visit to our new apartment in June. We like to start with a big brainstormed list of almost infinite possibilities and then winnow it down to the ideal plan: we did this for the Feast of the 7 Fishes we hope to host someday, and also with names for hypotheticalfuturebaby. We've got it down to one and half possibilities for boys and three possibilities for girls, with one clear front runner if none of our siblings claim it first (their future babies being less hypothetical than ours.)
. . . . . . . . . .
I was about 13, in the car with my mom, planning out loud the names of my future children and oblivious to her growing agitation. "You may not want to be naming your babies," she said, finally unable to stand it anymore. "You probably can't have children of your own."
As I calmed down from my initial shock and tears, she explained her worries--concerns that seemed obvious when she named them, but hadn't occurred to me yet. Most of it connected back to two surgeries I had when I was 4 years old: one to remove a football-sized ganglioneuroma from my abdomen, the other to remove my left kidney. In addition to the scar tissue, surgical staples and some worry over the one kidney, Mom's biggest concern was the remnant tumor: the 5% of the tumor that they couldn't remove because it is wrapped around my aorta. How would this bunch of cells--that started misbehaving when I was a fetus--react if my body was exposed to those kind of hormones again?
As much as this conversation with my mom upset me (so ... much ... angsty ... journaling ... ) I appreciated (still do) the way it made me seriously consider the possibility that I may not, biologically, have children. It gave me lots of low-pressure time to think about other options and made "OK-with-adoption" a dating criterion. A result my mom did not intend is that I've felt guilty about wanting to try to have a biological child: that it is selfish and irresponsible for me to want this.
As Sean reported, Maternal Fetal Medicine has given us the go ahead to try whenever we're ready. Based on a recommendation from the Doc, we're going to check in with an oncologist too, just to be a little more sure about that tumor. I'm going to work with my doctor here to get my migraine meds and symptoms stabilized: no triptans during the pregnancy! With all these pieces in place, plans may still depend on how my fertility has been affected by endometriosis, and a host of other factors we can't even predict right now. I feel good, though: excited, not guilty. I want to keep planning, talking and writing it out.

Ben Franklin House (not his actual house)

Had our first trip to MFM at the Benjamin Franklin House (which, from the outside looks like a run down motel in a Muppet movie, but is all posh fountains and marble inside) yesterday to go over Annie's medical history and light this firecracker. Our sis highly recommended them. The Doc was impressed but by no means intimidated, and tickled pink that we decided to visit before we got pregnant.

"So, you're really not pregnant yet?"

Then I played hooky from training and Annie from class and we spent a beautiful afternoon strolling around Chinatown to celebrate.