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06.05.07
Any Landing You Can Walk Away From: One
posted by Absinthe | 12:23 AM
I would say that this story has a happy ending, but that wouldn’t be true. It doesn’t have an ending at all, or leastways not one I hope to be writing anytime soon.
Warning Lights
The second-to-last Friday in April we go in for yet another routine late-term doctor’s visit. Everything is behind schedule as usual – it’s a busy practice and patients without pressing concerns (like, say, a baby that’s a little more out than in) get to spend a fair amount of time in the lobby. When they get round to taking Kim’s vitals, the nurse frowns and asks Kim to lie down on her side. Nothing to worry about, probably, but the blood pressure’s a little high, etc, and could we just do nothing for ten minutes so they can come back and take it again?
Half an hour later we’re standing in the pharmacy downstairs debating which automatic pressure cuff is going to best meet our needs, because it’s been made clear to us that we need to know where the numbers are at all times. We finally decide to save $75 by getting a model with a manual inflator instead of an automatic one, which as an added bonus allows Kim to direct any squeeze-induced rage at the operator (namely, me) rather than a microchip.
So, for a week we dutifully squeeze and record, squeeze and record, the numbers trending close to the ones we were supposed to worry about (140/90) but never really spiking. A week later we’re back in the doctor’s office and everything seems to be going fine but, hey, could we come back Monday? Which is three days later.
(If you want to make an Angeleno’s blood pressure spike, by the way, try telling them they have to drive out to the west side and back every damn day.)
On Monday (4/30) the doctor stops short of putting Kim on bed rest, but insists she cut that week’s work schedule back to 20 hours (about a 30-hour cut, really), and that this be the last week she goes into the office. Kim’s close enough to full-term that she can take disability if she wants, and what the hell, we can use an extra week or two to make the place ready for human habitation – at present it’s perfectly fine for cats but needs not only child-proofing but adult-proofing.
The doctor also asks us to come back Thursday, and there our troubles begin.
Smoke In The Cabin
On Thursday morning we are still blissfully ignorant. The baby is clearly much on our minds, and Kim is still dealing with the ludicrously unfair diet and the constant blood pressure checks and the usual pains and indignities of pregnancy, but all of these things are manageable. (Says the guy who can still get a full night’s sleep.) We can still slip out for dinner or a movie, and fantasize about an easy delivery and a quick return to a well-prepared home. There is somehow a stork somewhere in the mental picture at this point Thursday ante meridian.
Alfred Hitchcock codified the difference between suspense and terror thusly: If two men sit at a table talking about baseball for five minutes, and then a bomb goes off, you have terrified the audience. If you show the audience the bomb first, you’ve put them in suspense. This would be a more useful distinction to us under these circumstances if it weren’t for the fact that Kim and I are not the audience. We are the two guys sitting around talking about baseball and hence we know nothing about the bomb either way.
By Thursday afternoon the distinction is moot. Conditions deteriorate rapidly. First, there’s some protein in the – well, the sample Kim’s provided. Later on I won’t skimp on the gory detail but for now we’ll observe decorum. This protein, along with the high blood pressure, is an indicator for what’s known as preeclampsia, which is differentiated from actual eclampsia by the fact that you haven’t yet had any seizures. The list of potential complications that come with preeclampsia is long and frightful and I leave it to you to investigate it at your leisure; meanwhile, our doctor has informed us that in the interests of everyone’s health (except, probably, mine) she’s going to induce Kim, oh, next week.
Suddenly “We’re having a baby sometime in May” has become “We’re having a baby next week” with which fact we’ve barely come to grips before the doctor talks to labor & delivery and “next week” becomes “Sunday night”, which is three days hence. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And suddenly now I understand the difference between being in suspense and being utterly terrified.
Except that, of course, I’m both.
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Topics: Human Interests, Impending Parenthood | 1 Comment »
June 6, 2007 at 11:03 AM
Kinda puts my writeup about the twins to shame. Can’t wait for the next installment. I know what preclampsia is from a project I did on teen pregnancy and it’s scary as hell. How about another picture of the little guy?