Barely tenured

Picking at scabs

I have a terrible problem with scratching open mosquito bites until they bleed. I also chew either nails or cuticles -- one or the other, typically, for months. My nails are grooved from the cumulative damage.

(Miss T. already is getting hangnails -- perhaps there is some built-in tendency for the skin to split, especially on the thumbs -- and she chews on them. I don't know if she's seen me do it, or if it's just the obvious thing to do. I can't bring myself to criticize her for it, so I offer sympathy when she complains, trim down what I can, and try to get thick lotion on them before bed.)

 

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Now, I'm reading the comments to the big Alex Kuczynski piece on the birth of her child through surrogacy. The editors certainly stirred the pot through their choice of photographs! and the author is as honest about her classism (and that of the surrogacy "industry" -- they don't want surrogates who are, you, know, actually poor) as she is about her grief and later her joy.

(How different would reading getupgrrl have been, if there had been pictures? She was so careful in the details she chose to include.)

On the one hand: we spent our money and took our chances for exactly the same sorts of selfish reasons: to have a child who is genetically Beaker's. And there are a lot of (mostly appalling ignorant) people over at the Times who are saying "SCREW YOU, SELFISH BITCH!"

On the other hand: every time I sat in that Cornell waiting room (where Kuczynski starts her journey) I knew I didn't fit --  we could only fake it enough to be there by living off two incomes in a cheap damn state. So each comment that picks up another detail of the outrageous presumption of privilege tickles a little -- and I keep reading.
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During our peaceful Thanksgiving dinner at home, there was a blizzard of kicks.

Since then, nearly none -- and definitely none so distinctively kick-y. I know it's still early, but I can't help panicking. Were those death throes? It's so easy to slip back to the disoriented sadness of October.

Eleven days until my next midife appointment. I'd rent a Doppler, but if I didn't find a heartbeat it would kill me.

Maybe -- presuming it goes well -- I'll get one after the next appointment.

14 weeks

I'm here. It's still here. Nuchal scan was entirely normal; ultrascreen came back with 1/4000 chance of Down's, 1/2000 of trisomy 13/18.

I keep saying I'm trying to decide whether to get an amnio or not. But then I keep not calling to make an appointment to talk to someone appropriate, and the weeks are slipping away.

I don't want one.

Even though I have at least 3 good reasons for getting one: my age, my R.E.'s recommendation that all ICSI pregnancies get one, and that damn 7 week ultrasound.
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After the nuchal I started telling people (not like my belly wasn't already doing the talking for me!). Applied for my maternty leave -- yes, this early, so that my poor department has a chance of replacing me.

We told Miss T. last weekend. She doesn't seem to care much, yet. That seems fine.
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There is still not much joy.

My exhaustion has burned out, thank goodness.

But Beaker is sick, coughing and short of breath, and has not been getting better, and we don't know why (not specifically -- of course we know it's lung inflammation, but from what source and for how long?) -- and that's deeply frightening, in context, for both of us.

We will probably not go to Weatherwood for Thanksgiving -- long drives are a known strain for him. Marina's daughter will be there, along with several friends, and Marina called a few days ago to make sure we wouldn't be getting in the way too much -- well, more delicately than that, of course.