every two weeks

I am a theist, and my burden is often to stumble across various reasons that things happen—or at least the lessons within them. When I say them out loud, I always feel foolish. It’s awkward to admit that things mean something. Even small things. But I prefer to live in a world where they do.

Saying that God is pulling the strings to get my attention always sounds egocentric. But he is capable of multi-tasking. And worrying about sounding egocentric has never really stopped me before, now, has it?

Anyway, I think there are two things that God uses most often to teach us stuff. No. Three things. Yeah, probably three. He likes to work in threes.

1.)      Death (See: Chickens, Jesus)

2.)      Waiting (Known as the distance between the time you want something to happen and the time it actually does happen, which can be fruitful if you let it.)

3.)      Humans (Especially humans who say things that initially make you feel enraged but actually turn out to be true.)

I am a victim of No. 2 today!

For me, there is a pattern in this pregnancy of waiting, being let down, enragement at the doctor’s office and then this part. This is the part where the Teet who recently lost a baby sneaks back into my head and examines my thoughts and actions and shakes her head in disgust. I would punch me in the face if I were still her.

I think about that time in January that I drove back from Dublin with a completely different ball of rage. I remember that despair, and I know there are women going through that right now. There were probably some in the waiting room at the OB today. And if they heard me bitch about a rescheduled ultrasound?…I’m so sorry. I suck. I forget. And I suck.

Eventually I will learn that I have no concept of how lucky I am to be in this situation. And when I do,  I can more quickly abandon plans to murder, or at least be grumpy. Tasmanian Tot keeps reminding me of this every hour or so with a slap or a kick or an elbow or whatever stump he or she uses to beat on my uterine wall.

God is like a needy boyfriend (one who can give you eternal life in paradise, fortunately) and is always finding some new ways to bring me back to him, where there is peace and understanding and well … there’s not much rage-ahol. It’s what our pastor calls our “innermost selves.” I think that might be a Methodist thing. I need to remember that I don’t have to be completely broken, lost and emotionally devastated before I can hang out with the Lord, who gives perspective. But it takes training.

I mean, if I had spent ANY time thinking about what would happen if they didn’t use the flashy sound picture thingy on my belly that day, and what it truly meant in the long run, (Nothing.) then I probably wouldn’t have wasted an hour of my life being upset. And this can apply to a lot of other situations, I think.

I’m cool, baby. I’m zen. I’m blessed. I haven’t forgotten. I’m thankful.

I am writing this for someone. It might be you.

And tomorrow, the chickens are scheduled to be executed at 8 a.m.  So expect a lesson from No. 1.

The good news is that I'm getting much better at handling rejection from my OBGYN!

I was joking with Seth in the parking lot as we were wondering how the doctor’s office would break our hearts THIS week.

I knew things were not good when we went right instead of left into the Doctor’s office. Right means Doppler. Left means ultrasound. When I passive-aggressively told the nurse how excited I was about getting an ultrasound today, she was like, “What ultrasound?”

Yeah, so.

Apparently, some tech named Laura does all the 20-week ultrasounds, and I need to make an appointment with Laura. Except nobody told me about Laura. Laura. Laura. Laura. You haven’t yet made your appointment with Laura?

Who the eff is Laura?

The completely competent scheduling ladies must’ve forgotten about Laura. For those keeping track at home, that’s three out of four OB appointments they have somehow screwed up and had to reschedule. We’re at a 75 percent FAIL rate.  And they also must’ve forgotten when they were like, “Dr. Charles will do your ultrasound at 20 weeks. Are you finding out the gender?!?!?” a scant two weeks ago.

Sigh. Cursed baby factory.

They tricked me by sending Dr. Charles in to break the bad news about Laura–all but extinguishing my wall of indignant rage. Dr. Charles is the one I love the most. And the reason I haven’t abandoned these co-pay-hungry animals.  She is sooo chipper and sweet and nice and it is so hard to stay mad at her. Instead of apologizing or anything, she pulled a crafty move by asking, “Have you scheduled your 20 week ultrasound with Laura yet?”

Suddenly, it was my fault again.

Instead of throwing a holy tantrum, I just said, “No one told me anything about Laura. They told me that you would be giving me an ultrasound today.”

Then she pretended like she had no idea why anyone would tell me that she — um, my doctor? — does the ultrasounds. Laura does those.

awkward.

So poor Dr. Charles tried to change the subject by asking questions about my pregnancy.

“HOW ARE YOU FEELING?!?!”

It quickly became clear that Seth and I were not in the mood to be chatty. Seth had just learned that he had shifted things around at work to drive to Dublin to watch me pay $30 to pee in a cup, apparently. I guess I would’ve had to do that anyway, but it would have been nice to know that he wouldn’t necessarily have needed to be there for it.

“ARE YOU FEELING ANY MOVEMENT?!”

Seth, too, remembers Dr. Charles talking about how she would do my 20-week ultrasound, so we have a witness that I am not completely insane when I am making these appointments. Or at least I wasn’t when I started going to Columbus OBGYN.

“HOW ARE YOUR BOWELS?!?!”

We were mostly just staring at her in stony silence. We were feeling a little let down. You have to admire her spirit for trying.

She pulled out the Doppler, and we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat again, which is always fun, no matter how annoyed you feel at the moment.

She looked worried for a split second and I was relieved when she said, “I have not heard a baby this active in a long time!”

Apparently Tot Two is a mover and a shaker.

“Hear all those muffled sounds?” she asked us. “Those are the baby kicking and punching the Doppler.”

There were approximately 40 of those sounds in about a 15-second interval, so apparently, Tot has had about enough of their shit, too.

She walked me personally to the scheduling desk to make sure I had the first available appointment with Laura — either because she felt bad and wanted me to feel like she was doing her part, or because she thought I was completely incapable of scheduling an appointment with Laura. I feel like she wanted to apologize, but instead she kept emphasizing that there had been “confusion.”

Seth noticed that no one apologized to us the entire time. He hypothesizes that Doctors can’t say, “I’m sorry,” without admitting fault and therefor opening themselves up to some kind of lawsuit or something. He is also convinced that I should just skip the rest of these $30 chat sessions and come back when my water breaks. I can’t really argue with him at this point.

Oh — the results of our quad screening came back positive. Or negative. Whatever the case may be, Tot doesn’t have Down Syndrome, which is a good thing, I guess.

I’m really hoping that I won’t have to make an appointment for delivery.

“What C-Section?”

So, we shall find out on Tuesday. I mean … we will drive to Dublin on Tuesday. Lord knows what will happen when we get there. Man makes plans …

Sup, Totters. I can call you that, right?

Tomorrow is ultrasound day. We’ve got this down by now. Remember your mother’s requests:

Step One: Remain alive.
Step Two: Do something cute for the sound-wave picture thingy.

and introducing Step Three: Don’t do anything weird that would require some kind of late-term medically necessary abortion.

The people think that I’m terrible-joking, but you know that I’m not.

See?! I am the easiest, least-craziest mom on the planet, I promise. I love you.

xoxo,

teet.com

This is your last chance to make history:

Leave a wrinkle in 'em ... and YOU FAIL.

If you are a newsmaker, please postpone all annoucements until Wednesday.

Monday and Tuesday, from 3 to 11, I have CLINICALS!

I was giving the dummy her 437th Partial Bed Bath, and I had an epiphany: Can you believe they’re actually going to let me care for real, live HUMAN BEINGS?!? Like, MONDAY?!

This is all very bizarre to me. But I *heart* the scrubs, so — me and the healthcare field? So far so good.

Have I told you that my STNA class is like a mini-United Nations? We have Ghana, South Korea, Argentina, Guinea and, like, Plain City.

It’s really put an interesting cultural spin on the “activities of daily living,” that we learn about in class. Students from all of the African countries are appalled at the way Americans box up our elderly and put them into group homes when they reach a certain age.

“My grandmother would never be treated by strangers,” they often say. “She stays with the family.”

This is true. And sad. The only advantage that I can think of is that, for instance, my grandma has a fairly extensive social schedule in her nursing home. She has, at times, asked us to come back later (after we had driven to Toledo to see her, fyi) because she’s got some hot craft or BINGO night on the schedule. She might not have as much fun staying with one of her children, watching my dad or my uncle’s kids shuffling from football to soccer or whatever.

But she IS taken care of — and I’m talking dressed, bathed, helped with dinner, transferred into her wheelchair– by strangers. Strangers who have been trained for a whopping three weeks. Many of whom aren’t afraid to verbalize how they’re repulsed at the thought of a colostomy bag, or, more pertinent to grams, ”peri” care.

There are flaws in the system.

Apparently, there also are 3,457 ways to KILL an elderly person while caring for them. And I am learning all of them. Skin, bones, teeth, lungs — all of it needs a little more TLC when you get older, and any bump or forgetfulness on behalf of the caretaker can lead to bruises and infection and choking and suffocating and death. Basically, in a nursing home, everything you do can kill someone. It’s quite a daunting thing to think about. I think the pay should be more than it is.

In the meantime, here are some more gems from Carol. You know, to lighten the mood. We’ve been up and about in the classroom learning skills, so there haven’t been as many good stories as there were last week.

Mealtime:

- Feeding with a spoon is always better. A confused resident may start stabbing you with their fork if they feel like you’re not feeding them fast enough.

-After a meal, be sure to check for foods they might have hid in their cheeks.

- Elderly often have razor-sharp gums. They can take out an apple, chew nuts, anything with their gums. If you have a strong enough will, Carol says, you can do anything. Life is what you make of it.

This is you. I never said I wasn't a jerk.

I have heartbreaking news. After a family meeting some time after 11 when I arrived home last night, (special thanks to Monsterbeard for being JUST interesting enough to keep me and my unborn child awake during the looooooongdrive home from STNA classes.) we decided to UNINVITE everyone we previously invited over to our house.

Is anyone really surprised? I’m pretty flaky.

We haven’t heard from many people who are available this weekend, but even if we had, I still would have kicked everyone I love out the door because I am just pregnant enough to be honest. And I WAAAY underestimated how exhausted I would be by the end of this week.

Right now, instead of having you over to my house, I plan to sleep the entire day. I’m not sure what I’ll do about the poor sucker who didn’t RSVP but didn’t read this message and shows up anyway. I guess this is another lesson in REMEMBER TO READ TEET EVERY DAY OR YOU MIGHT MISS SOMETHING OF GREAT IMPORTANCE.

Please continue to love me. And remember: Never believe anything I say.

We can do this another time, right?

I am sorry.

As for the Lil’ Peckers, they are fat and happy. Maybe a little TOO fat. We are going to ask our Amish family if they can take the clan to heaven in a little earlier than the 17th. I’m not sure that everyone will be able to fit a couple turkey-sized chickens in their freezers.

These breasts are SERIOUS! I’ll try to remember to post pictures tonight. Oh, right. Maybe tomorrow morning?

For the price of a cup of coffee every day …

so, we’re having this recession, right?

unemployment is 9.5 percent, fyi.

and even now, in the worst of times, not only are most of us STILL not going hungry, we are both able to ignore the poverty around us while continuing to remain very picky about the food we choose to consume.

i think i heard chris rock say once that no one is lactose intolerant in Africa. this is because if you have access to milk, you drink it. food allergies are a luxury that cannot be afforded.

meanwhile, here in America, there are things like this, which came from a NYT piece on “urban foraging,” (which is as adorable as it sounds!!!):

Neighborhoodfruit.com offers a swapping system and lists 5,000 public fruit trees around the country. The founders are considering charging a $4 finder’s fee for people who want to use the site, said Kaytea Petro, who helped start the project.

They might even add a V.I.P. service for “the super-fancy Slow Food people who really like the idea of extremely local food but don’t have time to go get it,” she said.

 

yes, while the rest of the world grasps at the crumbs from our table, we have time to say, “man, i’m really into preparing hyperlocal food, but i’m not willing to participate unless my iPhone comes with an app that can pinpoint each peach tree in the city.”

as a nation, we are truly blessed. we have come so far since the depression.