Barely promoted

I'm going home

(Sing it, Frankie!)

I. Beaker reports that, at a party last weekend, four people (three female, one male—a former chair of my department!) independently said to him, "Emma's always so thin. I can't wait to see her pregnant."

II. My granite-like futon. My cotton sheets. All the pillows I could ever want.

III. Beaker!

IV. Temperatures in the 90's. Have I mentioned that my ankles don't swell in British Columbia?

V. No downstairs bathroom—hence, no shower. No kitchen counters, or cabinets, or dishwasher. Washer and dryer are hooked up, but the dryer vent must be threaded through a nearby window. Fridge and stove are hooked up, but the kitchen sink is some utility sink our contractor picked up, like, out of someone else's dumpster.

VI. Boxes and boxes and boxes. Boxes we shipped from California that Beaker has been ignoring. Boxes of useful books, yarn, and baby stuff I've been ordering on-line during my long lonely evenings here. Boxes from when we moved into the house five years ago, too, but we're used to those boxes by now.

I'll never be a golden boy

I. Dr. Wow's Favorite Graduate Student has been visiting this week. He sits at the front of lectures. He asks his questions as if they matter—even when they're dumb questions. He and Dr. Wow spend hours out in the courtyard talking—neither of them smokes.

Yesterday afternoon I could see the two of them, heads close together, staring at a screen, through the windows of the computer lab. A marked-up manuscript lay on the table. I knew I should tell Dr. Wow I was leaving, should arrange a time to meet the next day, but I couldn't bring myself to interrupt.

The Favorite Graduate Student does not acknowledge me when we pass in the hallway, if Dr. Wow is not around.

II. A Bright Young Man has also been visiting. Okay, he's not that young anymore; he's a year older than I am, in fact. Dr. Wow and I have been editing a proposal connected with the book project; that's what I was supposed to be doing this afternoon. But then it turned out that my laptop was the only available machine with a software package that the Bright Young Man and Dr. Wow really needed, right then.

So I sat back, stopped my own work, and spent the afternoon watching them brainstorm and test ideas. But I was always a spectator. Well, except when I had to tell them to use the Apple key, control won't work on this machine.

III. We all went to dinner together. Conversation turned to how we'd all ended up in ergonomics. Conversation stopped when I was forced to admit how many years it had taken to get my doctorate. "Eight years?" the Bright Young Man gasped. We'd started grad school at the same time, but he'd left town when he finished, so he hadn't realized. Eight years.

First year wasted at the wrong school; four summers spent with outside jobs; and then the last year I was already in a tenure track position, and plus I'd been going to finish at the end of year seven but then I wasn't able to hack a job search, driving back and forth to New York at least twice a month (to try to help my mother, who had started her final series of breakdowns), and finishing my dissertation all at the same time.

I didn't say any of that.

IV. I can tell that I'm letting Dr. Wow down. I am no genius of expository prose. I work very slowly. When I feel like I haven't gotten enough done, I disappear.

V. At a bar, at a conference a few years ago, shortly after I'd started at Granolan, another Bright Young Man came over to talk. "So what happened to you, anyway?" What? "When you arrived as a first-year, everyone thought you walked on water. So what happened?"

I went running back to the shelter of my hotel suite, where my roommates assured me, as I cried, that this Bright Young Man had been an asshole to each of them at various times.

Still: at least he asked.

Murphy's Law for summer seminars

The quieter the speaker's voice, the less assertive the speaker's personality, and the hotter the day, the more likely that the campus grounds crew will arrive, backing up their beeping minitrucks, mowing lawns, and whacking weeds, just outside the open windows of the seminar room.

Canadian corollary: the more likely a bagpipe ensemble will set up on an adjacent quad, too.

The news from Weatherwood

Remember how last summer, I spent like two weeks visiting my family? Seeing my mother at the hospital every day. Forcibly dragging my grandmother to an orthopedist (who said her vertebrae were crushing, one by one, and there really wasn't much we could do) and a cardiologist (who said her palpitations were the result of atrial fibrillation, and put her on some mild drugs). Getting a damn cordless phone for the apartment, over my idiot uncle Ricky's strenuous objections, so that I'd be able to talk with Nana even if she couldn't get out of bed to come to the phone in the kitchen. Reading all of Jane Austen's novels, too many of them for the first time.

Then this summer I spent five indolent days there. No car, burgeoning belly, many aches and pains—lots of excuses to do absolutely nothing. (Well, okay, I started a knitting project, and did test swatches and everything, but I'm sparing you the geekery until I have a camera and can illustrate the discussion.) Didn't even manage especially good conversations with Nana. Instead I got to listen to Marina hint about how difficult she finds my uncle to deal with. Duh, lady, but, um, you're the one who married him, you know?

The only useful thing I did was supply my grandmother with a new set of books: she's decided she wants to read the great Russian novelists, and reread George Eliot, while she still can. I also explained to Ricky how to find novels at Borders, if they're not on the tables in the front of the store (I'm not making this up), so that he can manage more of future resupply himself.

Things have gotten worse there since I left. Nana's back has gone out again. Ricky doesn't have the emotional strength to make her go to the doctor, and Marina knows her position is too fragile to push at all hard. I'm not going to push incredibly hard either, because it's probably another vertebra crushing down and there's almost certainly nothing that can be done. She is making it out of bed and getting dressed, but she's in a lot of pain and being very bitchy about it to both Ricky and Marina.

(Memo to self: calcium, damnit! Weight-bearing exercise, too. It's not just my grandmother: my mother had scoliosis and fractures. And she was only in her 60's. My bones are doomed.)

Plus, the cordless phone has died. Best current guess (Marina's, of course) is that the jacks that were just installed last summer have given out. The last time I called, Nana was in too much pain to get to the wall phone. I can't talk with her directly until it gets fixed, and I don't know if Ricky (with his huge phone neuroses) even wants to get it fixed.

The only good-ish news is that Marina has kept pushing on making the apartment less disgusting. The ancient wall-to-wall carpet, saturated with decades' worth of the output of my mother's undertrained dogs? They've ripped it out. Marina is insisting that my grandmother let the painters (that the landlord will pay for!) come in. And she got my grandmother out to Macy's to choose a new rug, which will be delivered after the painting is done.

30 week whine: it's all my own fault

So the last two weeks have mostly not been so bad. Yes, there was the comforting all-clear-for-now from the doctors last, week. But on top of that, no unreasonable aches, in particular. I've been comfortable being pretty mobile. Which has been both great and necessary: I don't have a car, and the Centre I'm visiting isn't especially close to where I'm staying.

Then, this weekend, I made a break back to the U.S. Flew down to a lovely northwestern city to visit some friends. Was virtuous and took public transportation to the airport.

But one of the friends visited had a horrendous cold. And we spent too much time walking around rose gardens and bookstores, and some of my pelvic pain came back.

Then I ended up in the worst customs line ever coming back into Canada. My first bus transfer was fine, but, as we arrived at the second one, I could see what was certainly the last express bus back to my end of town parked across the street.

Moment of extreme stupidity: I tried to run. Only for two steps, but that was too much, what with the fruit of the book store explorations strapped to my back. Sudden acute aggravation of the pelvic pain. I missed the bus anyway and had to stand for half an hour waiting for another (slow, local) bus. The one that stops much, much further from where I'm staying.

I limped back to my room and, as I was dropping my backpack to the floor, stubbed my little toe AGAIN, very badly AGAIN, on a chair leg. This is the third time; I may have fractured it the first time, nearly two months ago. Both the first and second times it took like 10 days to stop hurting. This third time is, so far, the worst, though.

So I woke up this morning with: achy pelvis that hurts every time I shift weight from one foot to the other. Extremely sore toe. And, as an extra bonus, sore throat and stuffy nose: looks like I've caught that cold, too. All extremely minor. Yet it's sort of like carrying three extra giant rocks around—every time I move, something hurts.

Will try to take it easy today, but laundry must be done and groceries acquired... sigh. Oh, and writing, too!

BONUS TRIVIA: The worst totally minor physical effect of childbirth I've heard of: one of the friends I visited had one of her little toes blow up. As in, the skin popped. You know, it just got kind of, um, pressurized.

Medical tourism

So I had my 29-week checkup at a a "family practice maternity clinic" at a Canadian (necessarily!) large urban women's hospital.

It was just lovely. Yes, things were crowded and a bit hectic—but I never waited more than 5 minutes, the medical staff were all wonderful, and the administrative staff were no more apathetic or hostile than they would have been at a comparable U.S. institution.

Patients are expected to do their own weight and pee stick (for glucose and protein) checks, and record the results on a card they bring back each time. This was my first appointment, so a nurse showed me how. It was also my only appointment, so we didn't worry too hard about my understanding of kilograms or exact shades of green or pink on the stick. (And I remembered with amusement Dr. Pippi-Poisson's horror when I asked for a couple of pee sticks to try to do my own monitoring!)

Dr. Wellie was utterly charming. I really hope I like my Ohindinois obstetrician as much. After we clarified my peculiar geographical situation and went over a bit of my history, we just had a nice chat about integrated screening (he thinks it's a great idea, but they have neither the equipment nor the trained personnel—well, neither does anyone in the fine state of Ohindinois! I was lucky to be in California for that) and what Group B strep testing is all about. He took a very data-oriented approach and was quick with risk ratios. He didn't assume that normal deliveries would take place in hospitals. When he said something comparing first births to later ones, I interrupted, "You mean, because the tissue hasn't been damaged yet," he insisted, "Not damaged! It's not damage. Stretched, or trained. This isn't a pathological process!"

He checked my blood pressure, measured my fundal height, and palpated the basketball a bit. He refused to be worried about my weight or my blood pressure (down to a more civilized 124 over 72), and complimented me on my mobility as I squirmed up onto the table. While he acknowledged that another visit in two weeks would be the ideal, he signed off on a recommendation that I go back in in three weeks—when I have my Ohindinois appointment scheduled.

As I was leaving, I was accosted by a student recruiting women for a study: they wanted fetal heart rate traces for normal pregnancies between 25 and 32 weeks. So I got a free non-stress test, too, and took a copy of the tape home.

I really, really liked the calm, data-driven attitude: we know what's been going on in our system, and we have faith that that knowledge will guide us well as we figure out how to work with you. And I liked having a chance to give a little extra data back, too.

Charges: about US$100 for the (half-hour, because initial) visit, and US$3.50 for the pee stick. I'll submit it to my insurance, but my hopes are low.

Mixed messages

I. The Centre for Ergonomics here

1. runs a nice little Coffee Hour every morning for all members and visitors,

2. at which they serve lovely pastries: croissants, chocolate croissants, scones, (American style) muffins, and even some things that are sort of like flat round croissants with the fillings of a nice little fruit tart placed on top—complete with glaze. (Perhaps those last are a Canadian standard? I think I remember them from Toronto, too.)

3. However, all the pastries are about a quarter of the size that they would be in the U.S,

4. and the only beverages offered are highly caffienated: (unpleasant) coffee and (even more unpleasant) strong-brewed black tea.

II. I spoke too soon in my last entry. Today Dr. Wow reiterated that the approach I'd taken in Section 7.6 did, perhaps, have certain expository advantages. But it needs to be reworked completely, as follows:...

III. I'm allowing myself a Caramilk bar before dinner.

A spark of light glints in the distance

Dr. Wow (the lead author on the book project that's what got me to Canada at all) finally, finally, finally, some 6 weeks in, has said something mildly positive about something I wrote.

Huge flame posted

The author of the Salon piece requested that I enumerate my complaints. You, dear readers, helped out quite a bit, and I've now posted my full response in the comments to the last entry.

Another ill-informed pundit

Sometimes, Salon is pretty good, ya know? Sometimes they're a little inflammatory (fresh Ayelet Waldman, every two weeks!). And sometimes their in-house writers are just a little dumb, or a little ill-informed, or... well, why don't you, dear reader, count how many fudges and/or inaccuracies and/or authorial prejudices masquerading as common sense you can find in the following excerpt from their round-up on the stem cell/embryo "adoption" hoo-ha?

OK, but doesn't Bush say that he's got his own solution to the problem of unwanted embryos -- doesn't he say that parents should give them up for "adoption"?

Arthur Caplan, the University of Pennsylvania bioethicist, has this to say of Bush's idea that hundreds of thousands of extra embryos can become children to adoptive parents: "I've never heard a sillier, more inaccurate, more ideologically fueled claim about anything in all of biomedicine." And Caplan is right.

It's true that there have been some children -- about 80 -- born from spare embryos donated to couples who want to adopt and also experience pregnancy. But to present this as a way to prevent throwing away all embryos currently frozen is grossly misleading. For one thing, the vast majority of parents of embryos in freezers don't want to give them up for adoption. They're emotionally attached to those embryos, Caplan points out, and they don't like the idea of other people raising their genetic children. That's why, according to the RAND study of frozen IVF embryos, more patients have chosen to discard or donate embryos for research than to donate them to other couples.

Moreover, the embryos currently stored in IVF clinics are there for a reason: They didn't look right, and doctors chose to freeze them rather than implant them. Perhaps that's why, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the chances of a frozen embryo resulting in a live birth are significantly lower than those of a fresh embryo: Once transferred into a woman's uterus, only 24 percent of frozen embryos result in babies, compared to 34 percent for never-frozen embryos. And not only is there a strong chance that you won't get any children if you choose to "adopt" frozen embryos, there's also a chance that you'll have more kids than you wanted, since embryo implantation very rarely results in the birth of just one child.

We should note that, just as it is unclear whether all of the embryos in storage can become babies, it's also unclear whether the embryos could work for stem cell extraction. But ethicists say it's much more practical, and perhaps humane, to try to get stem cells from the embryos than to try to get babies from them. In fact, it's unreasonable to expect any large demand for embryo adoption. Does Bush really believe that hundreds of thousands of women and couples who want kids will opt for this route -- to choose a process that rarely produces children, that sometimes produces more than one child, and that is, to boot, physically taxing and expensive? Caplan calls that expectation absurd.

And rather than selling them on this crapshoot, wouldn't it be more "pro-life" of Bush to suggest that childless couples choose traditional adoption? "We have 500,000 kids in foster care in this country," Rep. DeGette told Salon. "If the ultra right wing is so concerned maybe they might want to look out for kids who are already born."

(And I don't even really count the "implant" vs. "transfer" issue: that one's squarely the fault of the fertility industry and their publicists having been a little too optimistic and a little too imprecise for too long.)

UPDATE: This being the interactive blogosphere and all, it looks like we have the piece's author stopping by. Please add your comments too!