If you read the previous post, you know that I am on bed rest. I am allowed one stair trip a day. Our downstairs has the kitchen, tv, bathroom, spare bedroom, etc. and of course Lucy. Lucy weighs less than 2 lbs is bright red and can crack a brazil nut. Still haven't guessed? Lucy is a Green Wing Macaw.
Lucy is our 2nd bird. When I met Mike, he had Charlie, a Budgie. Very tiny and only somewhat noisy. Charlie died unexpectedly and we were very sad. We buried him in our back yard. After that, we started looking for a new bird. We went from a 2oz budgie to one of the largest parrots that exist. I actually picked Lucy, she had quite a personality.
In the beginning, it was clear that she LOVED Mike and tolerated me. Over time, as Mike spent less and less time at home, Lucy got more and more attached to me. She really seems to be most comfortable with a set schedule. It takes her up to two weeks to adjust to a new schedule. When I started working at home, it took two weeks for her to stop screaming. I don't mean, just an "aaaack aacccck", I mean throw down, arch your back, toss your body across the cage screaming. It is 10 times worse than a fork scraping across a chalkboard. She settled in and I could easily work and be on the phone. If my schedule goes off because I have to go into the office, then we go back to square one.
Well, me going into the hospital put us at square one. I was so glad to be at home in my own bed or on my own couch. Since I am allowed one stair climb, I thought I would stay downstairs during the day, keep Lucy company and go up at night. Well, hmmm, nice idea. One the phone started ringing that was it. Lucy couldn't stand that I wasn't talking to her so she started screaming. I tried to make Lucy think I was talking to her by looking directly at her and making eye contact. I had to get up and move to another room. Well then my cat puked and the odor was bad so I got up to get our steam machine to clean the floor. I continued to get calls through out the day with no rest in between. It was then, I started to get worried. My contractions were getting closer and closer and they were increasing because my activity and stress levels were rising quickly. If I didn't get the contractions slowed down, I was going back into the hospital.
Lucy's screaming was sending me over the edge. I didn't have thoughts of killing her but finding ways to get her out of the way. I thought about putting her in the garage. I was worried about fumes and that she had no cage. So then I thought I would tether her to a chair out back. That wasn't a bad idea except that she would chew up the furniture and a dog might get her. Then I remembered I had a roll of duct tape. I could just wrap her beak up a few times but then she couldn't eat. Plus, duct tape leaves a sticky residue and my husband would know that something was up. I was so tired and so stressed I thought that she was going to cause me to go into labor and I would end up having these kids too early which would create some physical issues. That was when I thought "sell her", get rid of her, drop her off at someone's house and then change our phone number. My anger and frustration was now all deflected on Lucy and with Lucy gone all of my problems would be solved.
We all know that isn't true though. She is like any other pet that is trying to figure out what is going on. I am just modifying my schedule to stay away from her for now. I am up in my bed with my laptop and things are quiet again. I am taking fewer calls and my husband made me breakfast and brought up some food for the day - including a pick glass of grape kool-aid, oh yeah!
I have stopped thinking of ways to quiet Lucy and am getting some rest. She is probably more at peace as well because she isn't distracted by having me in the room. Perhaps things are normalizing and I am getting the idea of what bed rest really means. Definitely need to set limits and do the things to keep peace in the house and the contractions down.
So Lucy will live another day or at least until she startes screaming again...
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Just my thoughts...
Man oh man, who thought I would be here?
I am pregnant with twins, two boys and was recently put on bedrest - something that is more torture than one would expect. Of course, it is for the protection of the boys so that is important but there is nothing like getting your independence stripped and learning what losing control feels like. I guess this is the introduction to parenthood.
I don't know that I am writing this for anyone's benefit other than my own. For that matter, I guess I could put this in a word document and it would never go anywhere. There is something about becoming a tiny speck in a vast universe that makes me feel like I am still interacting with others - even if I don't know who they are.
Let's see - my story in a nutshell...
Funny, adventurous, workaholic, single girl meets cool guy when learning to skydive. He is younger than she is by about four years and is very different from herself. She talks with him one night to the wee hours of the morning and believes that she will "love him forever"...
I actually thought that. I knew that even if I married someone else, I would always go back to that night and that man and would always believe he was the man that I dreamed of. Two months later we decided to get married. He is the love of my life and I know that I was meant for him and he was meant for me. Five years later, a house in the burbs and my husbands business thriving beyond original expectations, we are pregnant with twin boys. We tried for two years, even ventured into infertility treatments. The surprise surprise, the day before elections I learned that I was pregnant. I couldn't believe it. After all of the money spent on pregnancy tests turning up negative, I never thought I would know what a positive test looked like. My husband asked if I had gone to the doctor to confirm but I told him that I didn't really believe it was true. I promised that I would go the next day if I was "still pregnant". I took two more in the wee hours of the morning, both positive. As I stood in line to vote, I kept thinking..."is this real?" Afterward, I called Mike to see if he wanted me to pick up some Starbuck's and he said, "why aren't you going to the Dr.". That was when I made the slight detour, called the Dr. Office and went in to confirm. Well, it was true. I was pregnant - and apparently "very pregnant" based on my HCG numbers. After one more blood test and a quadrupling of HCG numbers, I asked if I was having twins. They said they couldn't confirm that but I already knew. I told Mike what I expected to be true, he didn't flinch (never does).
Fast forward to today...1st trimest was a nightmare. I lost about 11 lbs due to all-day sickness. I lived off of Nestle Quick and butter croissants because that was all that would stay down. 2nd trimester felt more like normalcy to me. Didn't have a ravenous appetite or food aversions or late night cravings. Everything was very normal. I started showing, maybe at 18 weeks? And then...two days after the 3rd trimester, this exhaustion settled on my like a wet blanket. I felt heavy all of a sudden. I had noticed that I was having Braxton Hicks contractions but didn't really keep track as to how long I had them or how many an hour. Saturday before last, the pain was more than usual and was persistent for about 6 hours when I decided to call the Dr. office. They called me into Labor and Delivery. They gave me Magnesium Solfide to stop the contractions and then moved on to two other drugs to keep the contractions down. One of the drugs totally screwed up my kidneys and liver so I stayed in the hospital another 4 - 5 days. The boys were fine - getting big (at 28 weeks, Baby B was 2lbs 15 oz and Baby A was 2lbs 11 oz). They gave them a steroid shot to build up their lungs. It was clearly their "traveling vessel" that was screwed up.
I am a very independent person. With my husband's business taking him away 7 days a week, I do alot of things completely on my own. I cherish and love that freedom. Not until I was confined to a bed with bathroom priveleges did I learn how much freedom meant to me. Something as small as the nurses controlling the number of CC's of water was more than I could bare. The whole experience was illuminating. I have worked full-time since I was about 14 or 15 and am vary rarely ill. I went from going 100 mph to 0. Part of how I defined who I was or the value that I provide was how successful I had become in my career. It was something I knew well and enjoyed doing. When you can no longer do that "thing" you are good at, you feel a little lost. It forces you to begin looking at yourself and learning about the value that you give each day other than what you can on a computer. I am still learning about myself and belief I will come out the other end of the tunnel with two beautiful boys and a new respect for myself as a person and not just a "worker".
Until then, those are just some of my thoughts.
I am pregnant with twins, two boys and was recently put on bedrest - something that is more torture than one would expect. Of course, it is for the protection of the boys so that is important but there is nothing like getting your independence stripped and learning what losing control feels like. I guess this is the introduction to parenthood.
I don't know that I am writing this for anyone's benefit other than my own. For that matter, I guess I could put this in a word document and it would never go anywhere. There is something about becoming a tiny speck in a vast universe that makes me feel like I am still interacting with others - even if I don't know who they are.
Let's see - my story in a nutshell...
Funny, adventurous, workaholic, single girl meets cool guy when learning to skydive. He is younger than she is by about four years and is very different from herself. She talks with him one night to the wee hours of the morning and believes that she will "love him forever"...
I actually thought that. I knew that even if I married someone else, I would always go back to that night and that man and would always believe he was the man that I dreamed of. Two months later we decided to get married. He is the love of my life and I know that I was meant for him and he was meant for me. Five years later, a house in the burbs and my husbands business thriving beyond original expectations, we are pregnant with twin boys. We tried for two years, even ventured into infertility treatments. The surprise surprise, the day before elections I learned that I was pregnant. I couldn't believe it. After all of the money spent on pregnancy tests turning up negative, I never thought I would know what a positive test looked like. My husband asked if I had gone to the doctor to confirm but I told him that I didn't really believe it was true. I promised that I would go the next day if I was "still pregnant". I took two more in the wee hours of the morning, both positive. As I stood in line to vote, I kept thinking..."is this real?" Afterward, I called Mike to see if he wanted me to pick up some Starbuck's and he said, "why aren't you going to the Dr.". That was when I made the slight detour, called the Dr. Office and went in to confirm. Well, it was true. I was pregnant - and apparently "very pregnant" based on my HCG numbers. After one more blood test and a quadrupling of HCG numbers, I asked if I was having twins. They said they couldn't confirm that but I already knew. I told Mike what I expected to be true, he didn't flinch (never does).
Fast forward to today...1st trimest was a nightmare. I lost about 11 lbs due to all-day sickness. I lived off of Nestle Quick and butter croissants because that was all that would stay down. 2nd trimester felt more like normalcy to me. Didn't have a ravenous appetite or food aversions or late night cravings. Everything was very normal. I started showing, maybe at 18 weeks? And then...two days after the 3rd trimester, this exhaustion settled on my like a wet blanket. I felt heavy all of a sudden. I had noticed that I was having Braxton Hicks contractions but didn't really keep track as to how long I had them or how many an hour. Saturday before last, the pain was more than usual and was persistent for about 6 hours when I decided to call the Dr. office. They called me into Labor and Delivery. They gave me Magnesium Solfide to stop the contractions and then moved on to two other drugs to keep the contractions down. One of the drugs totally screwed up my kidneys and liver so I stayed in the hospital another 4 - 5 days. The boys were fine - getting big (at 28 weeks, Baby B was 2lbs 15 oz and Baby A was 2lbs 11 oz). They gave them a steroid shot to build up their lungs. It was clearly their "traveling vessel" that was screwed up.
I am a very independent person. With my husband's business taking him away 7 days a week, I do alot of things completely on my own. I cherish and love that freedom. Not until I was confined to a bed with bathroom priveleges did I learn how much freedom meant to me. Something as small as the nurses controlling the number of CC's of water was more than I could bare. The whole experience was illuminating. I have worked full-time since I was about 14 or 15 and am vary rarely ill. I went from going 100 mph to 0. Part of how I defined who I was or the value that I provide was how successful I had become in my career. It was something I knew well and enjoyed doing. When you can no longer do that "thing" you are good at, you feel a little lost. It forces you to begin looking at yourself and learning about the value that you give each day other than what you can on a computer. I am still learning about myself and belief I will come out the other end of the tunnel with two beautiful boys and a new respect for myself as a person and not just a "worker".
Until then, those are just some of my thoughts.
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