21W2D

The Battle of Zofran continues. I am making progress against this bothersome enemy though. I got four more Zofrans yesterday after not getting any for over a week. The pharmacy tried to fill more than four at my pleading, but when they tried they'd get a "PLAN BENEFITS EXCEEDED" self-destruct alarm. And since I don't have hundreds of extra dollars chilling out at my place lounging around on the sofa watching Star Trek all day, I sadly retreated and dejectedly left with my mere four prisoners of war instead of the thirty to one hundred twenty I keep fantasizing I'll take home soon.

Perhaps because I was emotionally distraught, I accidentally locked my keys into my car and thus out of my apartment AND out of my only transportation device which could get me to work. I at least had the good sense to lock myself out with a gallon of milk, a loaf of French bread, a corn dog, a small handful of potato wedges, and, of course, my four little prisoners of war. I also conveniently had The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with me as well as my cell phone.

So I cried a little. Desperately called James a few times... called work and told them I wasn't actually going to show up at 1:15 pm as planned... Cried my eyes out some more... Gleefully discovered Kleenex hiding in my purse... And then I ate one of my prisoners with a swig of milk. (Is that against the Geneva convention? I'm guessing it is, but at least I defended the other three from the super hungry cat that tried to eat them. Of course, I did eat them myself later...) Devouring the corn dog and my measly potato fragments also helped. James eventually saved the day and bussed all the way home just to rescue me.

Breaking news! I finally found out what is going on. The insurance company has decided they want a statement from the doctor explaining that I do, in fact, require lots of Zofran. That, and there is a non-negotiable limit on the amount I can get during a thirty-day period. Twenty-four. Jumping jackalopes! That isn't the 30-120 I was fantasizing about. However, it is certainly more than four, so I'll just count my blessings, I guess. ... ... ... I counted. There are twenty-four of these specific breed of blessing.

As for the latest news on the great Naming Conundrum of Baby Alpha, she is still nameless. She does, however, have a nickname. Pterodactyl. James and I were having a giggling fest coming up with absolutely ridiculous names for the baby during a romantic lunch-time walk around the University of Oregon... and Pterodactyl was our favorite. And it's stuck. I do have reservations about officially putting a dinosaur in the first name spot on the birth certificate, but there's nothing wrong with a hearty reptilian nickname.

So far, I've come to the conclusion that I have no idea what to name Pterodactyl, and I almost certainly will not know before she's born. I want to get it "right". Not because the act of truncating and adulterating her given names will bother me (it apparently bothered my dad that I shortened Jennifer to Jenna), but because I simply do not have the unemployed dollars available for a name change in case of a tragic misnaming.

I'm mainly concerned about how her given name will sound in the following contexts: 1) Is it cute enough for an adorable small child? 2) Is it professional enough that no one would have second thoughts accepting college and job applications? 3) Is it attractive enough that some man someday will have fantasies about marrying this woman? 4) Could I see an old lady totally rocking that name?

I am less concerned about what she decides to be called in day-to-day life by family and friends. I don't have a ferocious attachment to names, so I'd imagine that besides the obvious difficulties of retraining myself, I'd be okay if one day she announced that she was going to be called Pteradonna Dilts from that hour forward. I might think she was a little weird, but to be honest, the coolest nicknames are the weird ones. I especially liked the nicknames "Tractor", "Hershey" and "Peach" that some of my high school classmates sported.

The leading candidates establishing apartments in my frontal lobe at the moment are "Abigail Joy", "Emily Jean" (or "Emily Anne"?), "Adella Katherine" (or perhaps "Katherine Adele"), and... yeah. I'm sure there are more to come. I think I'm going to plan on compiling a small list of four to five names and bringing it with me to the birth and then try and figure out if any of them fit. I will seriously need to resist the urge to name her "Purple Bloody Screaming Lizard" based on her appearance. I'm hoping she'll manifest some telltale signs of a particular personality within a day or two that will seriously help me out.

On that note, I am super curious about other people's experiences in discovering their children's personalities. Was it obvious almost immediately, or did it take months to figure out? Please feel free to let me know what your experiences have been in this matter.

Love,
Jenna and Pterodactyl

Edit at 8pm: It's official. The battle of Zofran has ended and I am triumphant! I decided to call around to pharmacies in the area to find out how much I'd have to pay for it out of pocket. Pretty much all the pharmacies everywhere priced a 4 mg tablet at roughly $4 each. And when  I'm daydreaming about 120 of them... oh, my. That is nearly $500. SICK. If the insurance could be persuaded to pay for it, I'd only have to pay $50, but that seems pretty impossible.

And then, there was Costco. They were pricing 8 mg tablets at roughly $0.33 each. Oh my heck. Too good to be true. I made the poor pharmacist swear to me by his spleen seven times that he wasn't lying to me. So I went and got myself 90 of those beautiful babies for a mere $34. I now have enough Zofran to last me an entire month--even if I eat three of those tablets every day. I didn't imagine it could get that good.

I admonish you all to commit the following to memory: "ZOFRAN IS DIRT CHEAP AT COSTCO." It may come in handy during your own pregnancy or during a loved one's pregnancy. Also, remember to say "Thank you for Costco" in your prayers tonight.

20W5D

My unfortunate news is that I still do not have Zofran. I really think these prior authorization things annoy everybody, including the workers at the insurance companies. I've been throwing up every day again... although strangely enough, I am otherwise feeling pretty good. Productive, like.

So, those of you who know me pretty well know that I sleep a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. I often sleep anywhere from 10-18 hours like it's no big deal.

But now there is this strange phenomenon. I'll lay down in bed and instead of thinking "Zzzzzz" I think, "I should read something. Or I could clean that. That doesn't smell very good. Maybe I could write a really long post about names. Or maybe I'll think about science instead of sleep." So... now I'm sleeping 6-8 hours a day. And during the day I'm wide awake and alert and stuff.

I'm wondering if this is another mysterious side effect of pregnancy. Dr. Google hasn't verified this idea though, because no matter what my search terms are, I only find TIRED pregnant women on the Internets.

My other theory is that maybe, for the first time ever, I'm not depressed or hypothyroid. I'm on the highest dose of Armour Thyroid I've ever been on. It was increased back when I was vomiting all the time and could hardly keep it down, so now that I'm actually retaining all the ground-up pig thyroids I'm swallowing, I have this strange energy spike. Besides waking up feeling awake and staying alert all day, I don't have any other symptoms that might be caused by hyperthyroidism, so I've come to a shocking conclusion...

This might just be normal for me. And the whole hypersomnia and chronic fatigue might have just been a combination of depression and hypothyroidism the whole time. After my prayers of gratitude, I started whining. So how come this didn't happen in college, huh? I needed that energy badly. If I was sleeping only 6-12 hours nightly instead of 12-18 hours back in college, I can only imagine how much awesomer I could have been. I'm sure my GPA would have been at least 0.10 higher. And I might have been able to work lots and make moneys. And maybe even make more friends. Waaaat!? It did occur to me that this is precisely why that didn't happen. 'Cuz if I had been so cool in college, I would have been too awesome for my own good.

Well,  I sure hope this energy level thing isn't just a fluke of second trimester pregnancy and will disappear as I get huger and never return even years after delivery... I'm a little anxious that my theories are totally and completely false. I am so keeping my fingers crossed for the next few months, even if it makes it harder to  type...

20W1D

Whoo! Past the half-way point. Today was the ultrasound, which went well. We looked at all the baby's organs and such, which all appear perfectly normal. A heart with four chambers and an aorta, two cerebral hemispheres with nice ventricles, a corpus collosum and a cerebellum, an appropriate amount of limbs and fingers and toes, and normal looking kidneys and bladder. Lots of nice vertebrae and ribs. I think I even saw the falx cerebri and other bits of dura. There was a curious lack of tentacles or hooves, but this is acceptable.

I almost didn't get to find out if it was a boy or a girl. Despite my hopes for an exhibitionist, the kid ended up being quite modest or perhaps feared espionage from voyeurs. Those legs were tightly closed. So of course we jiggled the baby (and my bladder and somewhat queasy stomach) around for all of five minutes, when finally we got the goblin to open up its legs spread-eagle. Lo and behold, there were nice vulvae and a clitoris. Translation: we are having a girl!

As I've mentioned before, I strongly suspected that the kid was female, but I had no empirical evidence for such a belief. I've heard old wives' tales that nausea is worse when you've got yourself a female fetus... I've seen it mentioned in the medical community, but I was unable to locate any studies to confirm this on PubMed. Lame. Maybe if I could get into more databases, I'd find a study or two to look at.

I've also heard that there is a weak correlation (but yes, a correlation!) between the actual gender and the predicted gender according to the mother... I'd love to read studies related to that question, but frankly, I am at a loss for search terms when I get to the PubMed search page. Lame.

Anyway, in answer to a commonly asked question... We haven't decided on a name. But, as I've mentioned in the past, I'm fond of Adella/Adela/Adelle/Adele and that has remained the favorite over the last few months. I'm not sure what a middle name could be for that, but a few ideas were Leah or Marie or something like that. I kind of like Adella Leah Dilts, largely because of the nice cadence and the cool double alliteration going on there with d and l.  Uh-DEL-uh LEE-uh DILTS. Not bad.

Apparently, lots of people first think of the singer Adele, and wonder if we're thinking of naming the baby after her, but... the answer is no. Adele just happens to have a name I fancy, as did my former roommate Adella. In fact, I am somewhat disappointed that all of a sudden there's a celebrity with the name. Part of the reason I like Adele and its variants is because it's somewhat uncommon. Oh well.

Other favorites include Evangeline, Emily, Amelia, Eden... Notice they all start with vowels. Apparently I like those. And I guess there's always Skeletorina. I'm not going to put that on the birth certificate, but I guess if she grows up to covet the name, there's always a legal name change available.

19W6D

I've been hesitant to write this week, because I'm been upset. I wrote a much longer post with lots of gut spillage. It is in my drafts, and I am not sure I'll publish it. It's largely about what it's like to have hyperemesis and how it sucks when people think they understand, when really they don't. And because I struggled a lot with depression and how it sucks when people understand that, when really they don't, I wrote about that, too.

Here's the rest of it, without the gut spillage.

I think I was a little premature in saying the nausea was no big deal. After running out of Zofran and having to wait a week or so until I can get more, it's biting a lot harder again. I do still go to work, but I've had to run out of patient appointments to throw up. A funny coincidence is that every time it's happened, someone is occupying the bathroom. So, just when I can't hold it any more, I'll run to the nearest trash can and throw up in front of everyone. On Tuesday, I  got most of it into the trash can, but I also sprayed the wall in one of the exam rooms with my gastric juices. By yesterday, I've at least learned to aim a little better.

Frankly, I'm an emotional wreck right now. In the words of my boss, I've got post-traumatic puke disorder. I think I've lost more water crying this week than I have vomiting, largely because throwing up produces a violent emotional response. I'm just glad I'm not hyperemetic again.

Onto a brighter note, I've feeling the baby move lots. It was kind of like a switch--I couldn't feel it because my heartbeat was beating harder than the kid was kicking, and then one day the kid was stronger, I guess.

19W2D

I've been trying to sleep for about an hour and a half, but, as evidenced by my writing a blog post at this hour, I've been unsuccessful. Sad day. I'm not even worrying about anything. To be honest, I can't sleep because I can't stop thinking about how cool sperm is. Ha. I guess working at a fertility center has strange side effects. On the off chance that anyone else finds sperm fascinating, you are totally welcome to engage in deep conversation about it with me. Ha.

Only really interesting news is that I'm getting an ultrasound on Monday the 16th. There should be some cool pictures, especially since I can tell you it will be on the best (highest resolution) ultrasound machine in the Eugene area.

I haven't felt the baby kick yet. Or maybe I have. I'm not sure. To be honest, my heartbeat is too dang loud and powerful. Anytime I think down to where my uterus is, and try to notice anything moving or fluttering, all I feel is... my pulse. Lame. And it's hard to feel for anything in between the beats, because my heart rate is so high. My heart has been puttering along at 100-120 bpm allllll the time. It does get down to 95 bpm when I'm asleep, but still. (Don't worry, it's not unusual for your heart rate to increase during pregnancy... it's apparently secondary to increased blood volume, which is also normal in pregnancy. Who knew? Plus, my heart rate has never been impressively low, either. 80 or so bpm is my normal, in case you're curious.)

Uhhh... what else? Oh. I'm not vomiting anymore, but I still feel like throwing up most of the time. Lest you feel bad for me, I'm actually super excited about that, because it's a million billion times better than it was when I was, say, dying of dehydration. It's like it's not even fair to call this nausea anymore, it's so much better. Plus, Zofran is actually super helpful nowadays, whereas it was almost useless before. It's like I'm playing with a completely different monster here!

So yeah. Nausea, whatever. My only complaint is that the pharmacy only gave me FOUR Zofrans today despite directions to dispense 30... which is enough for like... one day. BUMMER. I guess I'll just have to go back and demand me some more Zofran... either that, or request they follow me around with a throw-up bag. Yeah, that'll work.