Pre-Baby Post-Birthday Mid-Summer Trip Home to Seattle

What a difference a year makes.  A year ago I was back in Washington for my best mate Randall's wedding, catching up with old college friends and family, and still getting used to being an expat.  This year I travelled home to meet my new nephew Hudson and spend a bit of quality time with family and friends before our own family grows a bit larger (and a whole lot more cute!).  Instead of stories about work and fun Australian expressions, I was sharing stories of ultrasounds, baby name ideas, and constantly explaining why our baby won't be an Australian citizen.  Oh and lots and lots of apologising that we are having the baby in Melbourne (sorry family - we hope you come visit!).

mom, Saralyn and me on the ferry

My arrival was wonderful - lots of hugs from Mom, Saralyn and Amare, then a trip to Qdoba for some queso dip.  I wanted to get some exercise after spending a day on a plane, so after lunch we headed to Green Lake and spent the afternoon walking around the lake enjoying the beautiful weather.  That night we had dinner at Lindsay and Ryan's and I finally got to hug and hold my new nephew!  It was such a joy to finally have some time with Hudson, to show him that the best uncles have beards, and to get some much needed practice at cleaning up lots of spit-up.  Keeping in touch through video calls works with my older nephews and helps me feel connected with them, but with a baby it's all about the holding, bouncing, and snuggling, so I'm glad I could finally enjoy some time with him.

finally hanging out with little Hudson!

visiting Grandma Sally

with Lindsay and Ryan

enjoying the sunshine with Saralyn and Amare

someone might be jealous of my birthday presents...

with mom at home

The next two days were packed with activities, from a visit with Grandma Sally, happy hour with my good friends and co-workers in downtown Seattle, a delicious bagel breakfast with Aliza in Capitol Hill (which is all decked out with lots of colourful rainbow sidewalks), back home to Dad's house on Whidbey for a walk in the woods, spending some quality time catching up with Somer, and a delicious dinner out with Dad and Sarri at a great new Asian restaurant.  I even took the bus for the first time since I moved away and got stuck in terrible I-5 traffic, which I realised I don't miss at all!

Capitol Hill

reunited with Romeo at dad's house

On Saturday Dad took me out on his boat to explore Cypress Island, one of the many islands that form part of the San Juans.  Despite constant rain almost the entire day on Whidbey, the weather on the water was excellent.  Our first stop at Cypress Island was a quiet, secluded harbour where we had lunch and were greeted to visits from seals, a harbour porpoise, and bald eagles soaring among the trees.  The rest of the afternoon was spent cruising around the island, and on the way back Dad took us through Deception Pass, where I was able to get some great photos of the bridge as we cruised underneath it.  It was so peaceful being on the water, and to be surrounded by so much wildlife.  Thanks for the great adventure Dad!

Deception Pass

me and dad

The rest of my trip included more brunches and happy hours with friends, my belated birthday celebration and baby shower (mooncake got lots of adorable outfits and mooncake's 31-year young dad got lots of Ninja Turtles stuff and his favourite game, Cards Against Humanity!  Also thanks for all the awesome toys Caiden!!), and of course shopping to stock up on toiletries and clothes.  Mom and I also took Caiden and Amare to the zoo, which was a blast.  We had such a great time seeing all the animals, especially the massive brown bear that decided to take a swim right in front of us.

at the zoo with the nephews

hello brown bear!

The trip home was really special and it was great to see so many friends and spend so much time with the family.  It was also bittersweet as it reminded me how fast kids grow.  Hudson is already 5 months old, a cute, babbling and pudgy baby who is well on his way to becoming a talking and walking toddler by the next time I see him.  Amare and Caiden keep getting bigger and more independent, and they are beginning to interact with me more as little men and less like little boys.  For months before my trip Amare kept asking me to come over to see his house and help him beat a level on Super Mario Galaxy 2 that he has been stuck on.  Being a man of my word, I went to his house and helped him beat the level.  On the drive home, I was struck by how he has grown.  Now he's old enough to remember specific parts of games and isn't at the age anymore where he just puts down a game if it's too hard and does something else.  He works at them until he can beat them, or he seeks help when he can't.  And he not only remembers that I promised to help him, but he holds me to that promise.  Gone are the days of saying "we can wrestle tomorrow buddy" knowing he probably won't remember.  Now he and Caiden remember and they make sure I don't forget.  It's exciting to see how they continue to grow, and I feel so loved and overwhelmed that even though I only see them once a year, I'm still the center of their world for those few days I get to spend with them.

Perhaps that's a small example of what it's like to be a father.  To be looked up to, trusted, loved and the focus of a child's life all the time.  What an amazing feeling that must be.

getting ready...

Thank you Washington, for the great weather, beautiful scenery, and the excellent craft beer.  Thank you Qdoba for still making good queso dip.  Most importantly, thank you to my loving family and friends for all the great memories, laughs, hugs and for making time to spend with me.  I miss you all very much and can't wait for my next visit (this time with Candice and our baby!).  Go Hawks!

birthday celebration with the family

-BK

my night at the hospital!

*disclaimer* 

this is a long post, and it contains icky stuff about hospital procedures and pregnancy. you've been warned! :)

I'm entering my third trimester of pregnancy, which means doing a lot of fun stuff. Like the Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT). The GTT is currently mandatory for pregnant women at around weeks 26-28. It tests for gestational diabetes, which can be really bad if not treated properly, and requires drinking a really sugary drink and having your blood drawn. In the States, everyone takes a short one-hour test, and whoever doesn't pass it is given a three-hour version for further diagnosis.

Apparently in Australia, everyone is given a two-hour GTT. It's pretty intense (fast for 10 hours, get blood drawn, drink 75g of sugar in 5 minutes, get blood drawn again after one hour, then more blood after two hours) and my first experience was really bad. I don't do well with fasting, or blood draws, and certainly not with drinking the sugary equivalent of two cans of Coke on an empty stomach and slight blood loss. I didn't even make it to the second blood draw before I re-enacted the iconic scene from "The Exorcist" in the waiting room, in the presence of over a dozen fellow GTT women trying desperately not to replicate my fate (sorry, ladies!). And apparently if you toss your cookies mid-test, it ruins everything and you have to do it all over again the following week. And again, if you fail the second attempt too. Yuck.

Anyway, the morning of GTT attempt #2, I noticed a little dark discharge down there. A small bit. I'd been spotting on and off for the past few months, which the doctors had at first said was pretty normal. But during my most recent prenatal checkup the doctor had suggested I visit the Emergency Centre for testing if it happened again, as I have a low-lying placenta and I'm further along in the pregnancy. So I figured if I got through the GTT in one piece, I'd already be in the neighbourhood for a quick visit to the centre.

glucose. yum.

I made it all the way through my second GTT, which felt like a huuuuuge accomplishment (it was really hard, requiring lots of meditating and heavy breathing and squirming around in awkward positions). Afterwards I crawled away from the waiting room and replenished myself with granola bars in the hospital lobby, and estimated that I had about three hours to kill before class. Perfect for a little visit to Emergency - enough time for the doctor to look at my discharge, do some quick testing, smile and tell me it was no big deal.

The receptionists listened to my situation and said it was probably fine, but that they always encourage pregnant women to be looked at just in case. A midwife took my vitals, listened to the baby's heartbeat, then led me up to the birthing centre for some fetal monitoring.

baby HR monitor

An hour later a doctor came to my room to give me the details. "Well you're not actively bleeding, but your placenta was low at your last scan, and if it hasn't moved up by now it could be a bad thing. So, we'll give you an ultrasound and if things are fine, you can go today - but if not, we'll have to keep you overnight..."

"Sure, but I think everything's probably fine," I said. "Do you think I'll get to go soon? I have a class in a few hours..."

"Okay... I'm going to say there's an 80 to 90 per cent chance you'll be here overnight. We'll most likely need to monitor you."

My face immediately displayed a look of REGRET REGRET REGRET for coming in at all, and the doctor consoled me with: "Look, coming here was the right thing to do. I know you were probably just looking for reassurance that everything is okay, but this could be serious."

They hooked me up to a heartbeat monitor, spent multiple attempts trying to find a big enough vein in my hand to insert an IV cannula ("mandatory for all prenatal bleeding situations" also it hurt! so bad!), and started preparing an injection of steroids.

"Steroids?" I asked. "What for?"

"These will help the baby's lungs expand, in case it were to be born soon, like today."

Ummmmm no. NO NO NO.

"My baby is the size of a cucumber!" I cried. "I am not ready to be a mother today. Of a cucumber-sized baby. I mean, I will probably feel the same way when it's full-term and the size of a jackfruit, but..."

"Well, if you have placenta praevia you'll need a C-section, and probably an early one too. So even if you don't give birth today, this could help in the future. I mean, you never know - we just had a pregnant woman come in today with some bleeding, so we just induced her and she had her baby just fine... Anyway, this is going to hurt, so wiggle your toes..." The midwife stabbed my bottom with a big needle of really painful steroids. I saved my tears for after she left the room.

I should probably now mention that throughout this whole ordeal, Ben was out of the country for his annual Seattle trip. I did not hesitate to text him and our families and some friends about the situation. I was alone! At the hospital! For no reason, it seemed! I wanted sympathy.

I spent a few hours stranded in the birthing centre room, watching the batteries on my phone dwindle as I started responding to local friends' requests to come visit, fielding questions from my mother and in-laws, and trying to reassure Ben that I wasn't dying but at the same time not incredibly thrilled. I felt bad because I'd probably ruined his last day of the visit, and he was thousands of miles away feeling really terrible. But he was scheduled to come home in a few days anyway, which was fortunate.

My ultrasound showed that the placenta wasn't covering anything crucial, but it was still a few millimeters from a safe distance for a natural birth. It was most likely the reason behind my spontaneous discharge episodes, but no clots or terrible things that would need further care.

"So... I can go home, right?" I asked the midwife who wheeled me out of the ultrasound room back to the birthing centre.

"No, we've got a bed for you upstairs in the ward. The doctors still want to monitor you overnight."

Once I got situated in my new room, I texted some Uni friends with my room information (and sheepish requests for things like a toothbrush, bubble tea and a spare iPhone charger since my phone was at 1% battery...), then sat down in bed, trying to reassess the situation. I tried to feel concerned about the baby, but all I could think about were trivial things. Like how I'd be missing two classes from the first week of the semester, and I hated feeling left behind. And also I'd borrowed a DVD from the library that was about to be overdue, so I called the library and begged for a day of grace - not because I was concerned about the fine $ per se, but because the movie had been so horrible I couldn't stand the thought of paying actual money to have seen it. These were the kinds of "pressing needs" I was concerned about.

the view from my hospital room.

I felt like a terrible mother, or future-mother, or whatever I was and am. "Better to be safe than sorry!" and "It's the best thing for your baby!" kept running through my head, clashing with other thoughts like "I just want to go home!" and "This is ridiculous, nothing is wrong!" and I didn't even want to think about whether or not our insurance would cover any of this.

Fortunately, my Uni friends were amazing and came to visit and prevent me from going crazy. A million thanks to Liam for bringing a bag of novels and his extra phone charger (probably the most necessary necessity ever), and to Kate and Megan for bringing bubble tea, toiletries and snacks. They listened patiently to my tales of woe and filled me in on class stuff and gossip. Visiting hours were over at 8 (for partners too - so even if Ben had been in town, he would have had to leave at 8!), so I settled in for the evening soon after. I was in a shared room curtained off in the middle, which was weird - being there with someone else who probably actually deserved all the crazy medical attention. I still felt fine. My baby was moving (a lot, probably still on a sugar high from the GTT). And I wasn't actively bleeding.

friends to the rescue!

I tried to find sleeping positions that wouldn't aggravate my IV cannula or annoy my baby, which wasn't easy. I slept a few hours here and there, then finally just woke up early and took a bunch of mindless BuzzFeed quizzes. Breakfast was delivered, and a midwife came to check on the baby's vitals. Another midwife sat down with me to explain everything about delivering a 27-week old baby, and went through a huge packet of information about procedures and survival rates and chances of disability. Then a doctor came by to tell me that I'd probably need to stay a second night, perhaps even over the weekend, but time would tell... (!!) I could not believe it. I got another steroid shot for the baby's lungs, cried some more, and replied to more Uni friends who wanted to come visit.

at least there was Vegemite!

Tejasvi came armed with snacks and more bubble tea, and kept me company during another baby monitoring session. And then a doctor came in to tell me the good news: there were no more pressing concerns, so they were going to discharge me. Discharge! Discharge! The magical word I'd been waiting for, and ironically the same word that had gotten me into this whole situation in the first place. I was given instructions to "take it easy and don't lift heavy things," and that my next prenatal appointment would be moved up a week to discuss any test results.

Ali came to visit armed with magazines and fun conversation, until I was given my discharge papers and the green light to go home. Then Tejasvi helped me carry my stuff out of the room and hailed a taxi to take us back to my place. I owe my friends a million times over.

more company!

So. Everything seems fine, for now. The whole overnight visit felt very unnecessary, but at the same time I guess it's best to err on the side of caution. If I hadn't followed up on the bleeding and it had been a serious issue, I never would have forgiven myself if something had happened to the baby.

It also wasn't lost on me, the privilege of being in a part of the world where even the smallest prenatal concern led to the hospital actually taking me seriously (very. very. seriously.). I know that this isn't the case for so many other people in the world, women especially. And so for that I am very grateful.

So, thanks to all the doctors and midwives for being careful and thorough with my situation. And a huge thank you to all my friends and family for keeping me company, whether in person with treats and hugs and stories to laugh at, or online with concerned questions and reassurance that it was better to be safe than sorry. Hopefully the next time I end up staying overnight at the hospital will be in three months, when Ben is in town, when the baby is actually ready to meet us... and when I'm maybe a little more prepared to become a mother.

CK

p.s. Also thank you library, for the day of grace on my overdue DVD. I didn't end up having to pay a cent for the stupidity of watching the travesty that was "50 Shades of Gray".....