Hurry Up and Wait

When last we left this story, it was with the expectation that things were about to move forward quickly. On Monday, one day after my due date, I lost the famed mucous plug after which my friends went immediately into labor - their membranes (or water) breaking, heading straight to the hospital for a few hours and then the text message later: Baby girl XXXX has arrived (all of them were girls)!

This was the story with all of the summer babies born to my friends over the past three months. No less than 5 babies, each of them early, some as little as a week, others as many as four weeks.

Our little one was not so fast which confused me given that my sister's three kids and indeed myself and my siblings had all been either on time or early ourselves.

When the first friend had her baby, due okay, I reasoned with myself, she was nearly a trimester ahead of me anyway; by the time we went to visit my friend with the four week premature delivery, whose date was AFTER ours, I was going slightly insane.

Conflicting emotions rolled through me: between a small tinge of pleasure that our son was happy where he was and healthy but mostly irritation and a growing sense of disbelief that I would ever get to meet this creature I had carted around for nearly a year.

I've already talked about my dismay and surprise at passing my due date (mom here visiting to entertain me and keep me from scratching my eyes out). As the week wore on, everyone was getting restless. I had used up three of the six weeks of maternity leave legally available to me; any further delay and my mom's four week trip was also slipping by.

Sand was spilling through the hourglass.

Tuesday night, nearly 24 hours after the 'bloody show' that started in the morning, we decided to go to the hospital. The bloody show is described as two teaspoons of blood and a sign that labor is imminent. I had changed maxi-pads at least four times during the course of the day and increasingly there were membranes and tissues emerging. (If this makes you queasy: pregnancy and delivery are not for the faint of heart).

We went to the emergency room, wanting to avoid the OBGYN clinic for their administrative lacking and obvious reasons previously discussed on this blog.

I walked into the emergency room and of course a Qatari gentleman was served before me; then I handed my paperwork to the woman.

"What's the problem?" she asked.

"I'm pregnant and bleeding," I said.

"How many months?" she asked.

"Nine," I said.

They told us to take a seat. My mom, husband and I sat in the 'male' waiting area because while women can sit in the men's area, men cannot sit in the women's area in the gender segregated culture of the Arabian Gulf. Two other men were in there with a few toddlers who were bouncing off the walls.

"You're not nine months pregnant," my mom said, "you're ten months pregnant," pointing out one of the grand ironies of pregnancy that it actually goes 40 weeks instead of 36.

Then a nurse came with a wheelchair.

"I can walk," I said, but they insisted not wanting to take any chances. They wheeled us straight up to the labor ward and got me onto an exam table. The nurse's bedside manner was limited to data related questions.

How many weeks pregnant was I?
When was my due date?
When had the blood started?

They were insisting only one person in the room with me at a time and so I had a Sophie's Choice moment: my mother or my husband? In the end, we decided they should take turns. My husband had his iPhone with plenty of games to keep him entertained.

They hooked me up to the CTG monitor and my contractions were there but over thirty minutes apart. The familiar thump, thump of the baby's heartbeat reassured all of us.

The doctor came in and got gloved up. One of the dreaded exams which are so painful they should be billed as good birth control.

"This is the cervix softening," the doctor said, "a good sign. We can induce you or you can go home and wait for the labor to progress."

I nearly burst into tears from relief. At that moment I realized how stressed I had been all day each time the blood had shown up. I had carried around the worry that the placenta had ruptured or was leaking or there was some other destructive force at work on our baby, slowing killing him, while I ignored it as normal.

Having been coached to resist the words "induction" or anything related to it and it also being Tuesday night, a week from the following Monday when my doctor had said we would look at options, the three of us decided to go home and get more sleep.

We were relieved that the baby was healthy, that the amount of blood was more than normal but not a cause for concern.

The mood in the car on the way home was slightly jubilant. We went through the Dairy Queen drive through for blizzards and home to wait some more.

And There Goes the Plug..

Yesterday we had our 40 week check up at the doctor and still no sign of anything near the volcanic activity my friends had experienced in the last two months. Of the five summer babies due, all but ours had come early. I had alternate feelings of annoyance that we had a full term 'dud' and also relief to be spending so much quality time with friends, my visiting mother, attentive husband.

In a black mood when we left the hospital, I was determined to try to shake it off. Though I was tempted to just come back to the house and 'rest' (which no one would have blamed me for since getting up at 7am and it bein 35+ outside) Mom's tourism took over and we went to buy t-shirts, a wireless router, tour the Islamic Museum, and try out lunch at the Malaysian restaurant in the souq.

It was the perfect centering afternoon: lots of walking and spending time around ancient objects. Nothing in that museum was made in a hurry and being around those objects was strangely soothing- including the architecture of the 300 million dollar structure itself. The cool marble, the bountiful air conditioning, and sheer stillness of the place made me catch my breath and reset me for another day of pregnancy (as opposed to impending delivery).

This morning - the date given to us by our doctor's for when our baby was 'due' - I had a meeting with an intern who is doing some editorial work for an ongoing book project. I took my computer so that afterward I could do a little bit of work and make the most of the extra time we have without the baby on the outside. While I was sitting there, I felt wetness. Not enough for the one liter flood I had been warned about for the infamous 'water breaking' but more of a trickle. As though a period were starting.

I kept typing: finished the review I was working on, sent a few more emails, putting up on Facebook that no, in fact, people are NOT helping when they make jokes about your passing your due date. The responses were overwhelming. I've never seen that many people respond to a status update unless it was someone's birthday or wedding.

The remedies came pouring in: sex, spicy food, walking, certain kinds of tea.

When the one hour of internet time given by the cafe ran out, I got up to the bathroom to investigate. There was no rush of water, embarrassing me in the middle of the Middle Eastern mall. But I did find evidence of the 'mucus plug' that everyone talks about so much. This had been previously described to me as something you'd 'know' when you saw.

Sort of like falling in love and trying to decide if someone is 'the one.' There are so many aspects to pregnancy that people describe in this manner, it could drive a more precise person crazy. (For the record: It was like snot but from the other end.)

I called my husband who was excited and announced the fact to his single male friends who likely couldn't care less and were a bit horrified a) at the knowledge and b) at this being announced on the way to lunch. I called our one other close friend and mother of two who urged me to get home as quickly as possible as her water had broken within minutes of loosing the plug.

I bought batteries and postcards for my mother, got gas and doughnuts on the way home.

Nothing. No waters, no contractions, just a yummy shrimp curry lunch and then a one hour nap. Friends from work came by to entertain me: a bit of Wii and board game; then a movie with my mom and husband.

Now to bed, hoping the guy decides to do us all a favor and wait until tomorrow morning. Everything feels better in the light of day. Even your body being pulled apart by something the size of a watermelon.

What's Wrong with Your Feet?

The bile salt scare I had at 36 weeks has subsided except for one glaring fact: the topical steroid cream I was using on my feet has caused them to shed without end, like a snake replenishing itself.

I was shedding and scratching so much I couldn't take my feet in for their pedicure. My big toenails were dragon lady size and had torn into the skin on the opposite heel while I was in bed one night. I only caught this last weekend when my feet were so dry, it hurt to walk on them.

The wonders of Neosporin which brought the swelling down in the right foot after two days; and allowed me to take the feet in for a pedicure. There was also peeling on my hands but it was insignificant compared to what was going on down under.

The girl at the spa worked hard scrubbing them and I immediately went down the road to the store she recommended to pick up the foot scrub and pedicure instrument she used. She kept working and working, pulling away the skin. After the third time, she said:

"What's wrong with your feet madam?"

I laughed. Because when she first sat down, she had asked "Are you pregnant?" Which given the size of my 9 month belly, seemed an even sillier question.

"They are just peeling," I said, "but you are helping."

She shook her head and took out a pair of tiny scissors going all the way around to get the smallest pieces of skin.

My husband has had to put lotion on my feet every night just so it doesn't hurt to walk. All through our marriage he has given me "toesizes" or foot rubs and now in the home stretch they have become more vital than ever.

I used both the scrub and the pedicure peeler this morning in the shower and after an afternoon of walking around, there is a new layer of skin that needs to be removed.

I can't complain given what other women endure during pregnancy. And the size of my Shrek ankles - cankles - the books did warn me about. The fact my boobs are straining even my sports bras which up until now had been the most comfortable solution to wearing any kind of support all points to the day when our son will make his appearance.

Only he and God know exactly when that will be. In the meantime, the rest of us will have to wait (scratching and rubbing as there is no such thing as patience five days before a due date).

Survey Says..

We've been having a hard time getting to agreement on a name. My husband even taunted me with the promise of the turtle hatching trip saying: "If we go to see the turtles, I get to name the baby."

"Fine," I said, "I'm going to call the kid whatever I want."

Multiple names are not unheard of -- particularly in ethnic cultures like ours. This was confirmed and inspired me over lunch this week with friends from Zimbabwe who each had several names that family members used to refer to them. And two names for their daughter which different people used.

This was the best argument for a middle name that I ever heard. Up until now, I thought of middle names as useless Caucasian middle class inventions. The only purpose they served was to solemnize formal occasions like graduations or weddings or protect from identity fraud.

We put up a poll with our final six names to see what would shake out as the top two. My husband was not expecting the eclectic taste of our friends.

Out of:
Seth
Marcus
Miles
Zane
Zak
Miach

Micah and Seth (two that were not his picks) were the front runners. So the debate continues as the voting has reached 100 participants. Zak and Zane being in the bottom rung; we've promised ourselves to flip a coin if we can't agree on the order of the top two.

One thing I know for sure: these 40 weeks have been worry free. So much so I can't really imagine what it will be like when the guy is on the outside. But they all have to come out eventually.

The Last One Out

Today our friend who was due three weeks after us gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Imagine our surprise and confusion at the news: we were all in a line and now that line is bent (almost as out of shape as I am!).

I called my friend who is in the U.S. and due four days after us. We moaned about these boys we are carrying that have no intention of coming out early. The two of us are the only ones in the summer line up who have come almost to full term. The thought of being 'late' was terrifying to me. Now I go between gratitude at all the things I've been able to get done and curiosity about when the guy will make his appearance.

This has thrown me for a loop because most of the children in my family are born early; almost all my nieces, and even most of us siblings.

I wasn't getting impatient until my husband kindly informed me he didn't want us to go to see the sea turtles hatch their eggs because it was an hour outside of the city.

Rightly or wrongly this imposition only made me furious: as if sitting around, getting bigger, hanging out with my mom wasn't slow enough. Now I was being banned into my house because of this kid who was so comfortable, his head wasn't even in the right direction to exit?

My mom shared a story about being left alone at home with a ten year old girl while the rest of her family went to see a boat at eight months pregnant. Unexpectedly I had an ally.

I tried to reason with everyone: Labor rarely lasts only an hour. After all even the baby girl delivered today at 4:15 p.m. started her way out the previous night at 2:30 in the morning.

The likelihood of my delivery taking only one hour was slim to none.

"Do you want to be in pain for an hour?" my husband was asking me, trying to talk me out of going up north to see the turtles.

This was the same man who felt so uncomfortable about my going to the US at seven months pregnant, that I didn't go.

"You kept me from going to the US," I said, "You and everybody else with your nervousness. I'm not going to hang around the house for no reason."

It's amazing how at this stage in the game, nine months, everyone has an opinion about what you should be doing.

Eat spicy food, they tell you, to bring on labor.

I'm Indian and my mother is visiting. It's impossible for me NOT to eat spicy food.

Walk a lot they say.

Since it's Qatar, the mall is the only place to hang out when it's 120 degrees outside. Walking is all there is.

"We'll go to the movies," my husband says, ignoring the fact we've been to three movies this week and watched even more at home.

Needless to say, I'm not thrilled with the idea of staying home. And I called my friend to say I'm going to see the turtles. And if the kid decides to come on the way there or the way back: well then, the hospital bag and car seat I've been driving around with for two weeks will come to good use.

So Sorry Madam, None Available, Fully Booked Madam

This refrain is often what greets you if you call up and try to get a nail appointment on a Friday afternoon. Friday being the first day of the holiday here in Doha, it’s often the afternoon of choice for women to get waxed, washed, and generally buffed up for the weekend. After a frustrating few episodes of this, I caught on and made my booking early in the week or when leaving the previous one (or relying on my friend to make one for both of us after I chewed out the staff on one particularly frustrating incident. But that’s another story).

While beauty appointments are taken so seriously – you can be cancelled if you are more than ten minutes late and relegated to not being seen – I wish the same seriousness would be given to prenatal or doctor’s appointments. You can show up for your appointment thirty, fifteen, or ten minutes early and the result will be the same. You deliver your insurance documents (which they always have to photocopy even in your 9^th month) and wait to be weighed and measured by the nurse. After this initial rush of activity in the first fifteen minutes, you wait. And depending on the time of day, you can wait thirty minutes up to two hours to see the doctor.

Yes, you have an appointment. An appointment that likely took you thirty days to get, despite trying the trick you learned at the nail salon of scheduling your next appointment after your current one.

“The schedule is not ready,” is often the explanation; you’re supposed to call or come back. In a country where women have an average of 4 children (many of them up to 9) the idea that a pregnant woman might have other things to do, concerns she’d like taken seriously, or in general be in need of care does not seem to register – even at the private hospital.

After all the hassle of getting one, your hard won appointment time is just a suggestion. The later in the day you go, the more unlucky you are and the doctor likely to be called away to do an emergency C-section or other equally important duty in the maternity ward. In the last nine months I’ve been told to sit down and wait on the two occasions we could not get anything other than the 8pm appointment slot.

On both instances I went back to the nurse at 9:00 p.m. to ask what was happening.

“There are three people in front of you,” she said once, “the six o’clock person hasn’t been seen yet.”

Did you know that when I was still at my house and coming to the hospital? Could you have called me and told me to bring something to eat? Or that there might be a wait?

What has saved me is actually the wireless access. I now go with my laptop and am able to make some use of the time that otherwise I would spend getting angrier and angrier. I made this discovery during one of the first many long waits on my mobile phone. A few Twitter/Facebook posts later and suddenly Twitter is blocked by the wireless interface. A coincidence?

Doesn’t seem to have affected the position of ‘quality in service’ award in the ironic form of a giant start that I’ve had visions of setting on fire on several of these unbelievably inconsiderate occasions.

Perhaps what is even more frustrating about this hurry up and wait process is that the doctor, scattered and equally unimpressed that you’ve managed to get pregnant, grow a baby, and come down to the hospital to see how it is, spend an average of 15 minutes on you. They do scan the baby much more often here than they do in the US or other places. Many of my friends only saw their uteruses for the first time at twenty weeks. I had a thorough peek during a Friday morning trip to the emergency room when I couldn’t get my period to stop and one every visit since then.

Of the two official ultrasounds they gave us in radiology, the doctor came in and seemed more interested in manipulating the instrument and his charts than telling us anything about what was happening.

This after we had heard the scary words: low placenta and breech position.

I picked up the DVD of the seventh month scan, knowing that family and friends wanted to see the progress of our little one, but the images that our expert had taken were little more than black spots on a grayish screen.

We have an appointment tomorrow and now will likely go once a week. The itchiness has died down which is comforting in terms of the condition they had predicted. The fact we requested a secondary blood test a week ago and they never called back is not.

Being a woman of iron clad convictions and also work schedule, being at the mercy of uncertainty is a new, humbling prospect. I don’t know when or if my water will break.

Will it be at night? And we’ll congratulate ourselves on putting down the shower curtain the midwife recommended so we don’t come back from the hospital to a ‘mangy’ bed.

Will it be at lunch with a friend, or running into someone you’d rather avoid like in the movies?

The prospect of being “late” or going over my due date has me slightly in dread, if only because my return date to work looms before me. As does scheduling a visit by my aunt from India to coincide with my mother and brother being here.

Being in the ninth month is interesting or maybe it’s because I now no longer try to hide the enormous mountain that has become my ‘bump’ because it would be humanly impossible to conceal.

At the bank this week, the manager actually took me out of line to a private counter so I didn’t have to wait. An acquaintance at the grocery store on my behalf yelled at two men who did not pick up something that was knocked down and proceeded to get it for me herself. Even my husband carried heavy parcels after we went to the movies instead of telling me we’d come back later to get the car floor mats I’d wanted for several months.

I’ve even put up a few pictures on Facebook, despite not having done this since month five.

What hasn’t changed is people sharing their opinions of how big or small they think I am.

A colleague walked in for a meeting a few weeks back and said:

“How many months are you?”

“Eight.”

“Oh, you are not that big…”

“We don’t care,” I said, though she was oblivious to what I was saying and kept on sharing her opinion, “pregnant people actually don’t care what you think of our size.”

The woman at our weekend club asked me yesterday “When is it coming out?” Bless her; she’s the one who also said I looked too big at eight months. She just doesn’t really know better I don’t think, so I let it go.

Whatever the reason, the reaction is markedly different now in the home stretch from everyone. They keep saying it’s not far away now. Not knowing when it will be, I can’t really agree or disagree. It could be three more weeks (until the due date) or it could be five, if this guy decides he’s just fine where he is.

I do know that in the middle of the night when I slide out of bed to go to the bathroom, my legs are a lot more unsure than they used to be at the ten, fifteen, even twenty pound stage. Thirty pounds and nine months in, I not only get up early to pee in the morning, I’m now forced to clean out my intestines at least twice a day or risk major discomfort. In other words: my tenant is growing larger and the accommodation is not keeping up.

I do want to tell him that there is more room outside than inside – if judging by his movements (which apparently may not be many more but just felt more by me, the host, since he himself is bigger) he wants to break free.

I’m torn between wanting the baby to come now, so that I can use all seven weeks of maternity leave to get used to him (vice versa for his sake) and looking forward to three weeks of finishing up projects that working for a startup has not allowed me even to ruminate on since March.

My husband is in a full scale panic because we still have not come to agreement on a name. A name, he feels, is essential knowledge prior to driving to the hospital.

Sage is now out because it’s too feminine. Axl had a brief moment of consideration before being grimaced off the list by his co-workers. Riz has been laughed at (means rice in Arabic) by mine. Max I can’t really fathom using in real life and now Solomon, once so noble sounding, seems too formal.

The search and the wait continue. Tomorrow we start the day with a 4D ultrasound which will hopefully yield a photo worthy of sharing until he arrives in person.

Is Your Blood Pressure Low?

This past week has been really trying at both the hospital and home. What started as an innocent foot rash, caused by cardboard in a pair of ballet flats, grew inflamed when the AC in our bedroom blew only hot air inside with the 100+ temperature outside.

I started itching, thinking it was the heat and having heat stroke. I couldn't sleep because of the furnace I was carrying around inside me. For the first time in nearly a year and a half, I cried uncle and didn't go to work. I took it easy and waddled around the house - only to find the itch spreading to my hands.

My husband's colleague, a nurse, identified this as the early signs of a condition that starts in the 36th week of pregnancy: obstetric cholestasis, where the rash was not just a skin issue but my liver releasing bile salt into my blood. There were scary words thrown around: still birth, inducing delivery. All of this at the end of a pregnancy when there had been literally no complications.

The hospital has been no help as no two doctors will tell you the same thing. The first test we took said the salt level was high (165) but not so high (in the 1000s) as to cause poison to the placenta and thus the fetus.

So I'm scratching away and hoping that they are right; it's not to a level to be concerned. We'll hopefully find out more on Sunday at the next appointment.