Twins @ MindSay

None of these are truly teaching-related, so it might not seem the best place to write them, but ... screw you, it's my journal : )...

-- Steve the floating janitor really DOES look like Freddie Prinze Jr.  ((Floating Janitor is not nearly as cool as it sounds.  No magic involved; he just rotates between all the schools to help fill in for people being absent)).  I was 14 when 'She's All That' came out, so I consider FPJ to be moderate-to-moderately-high on the attractiveness scale.  Ipso Facto, I find Steve to be nice to look at :).

-- I feel bad for people who don't have a Mike in their life.  I love how we can just talk on the phone for 40 minutes and it's never dull.  He is always there for me, and I couldn't ask for more.

-- I have had the sinking suspicion for a while now that Mark has a little crush on me.  He makes some comments sometimes.  I think he's a cool kid, but I'm not interested.  Besides, it was still just suspicion that some of the comments were in fact flirtation/hitting on me.  I just got the text, "this place sucks after you leave".  Ruh-oh. 

-- Dylan has siblings that go to JSS?

-- I am the 10 1/2 person to think Steve looks like Freddie Prinze, Jr.  I am a  half person because Mark said it doesn't count unless I actively said, "wow, you look like FPJ" the way the 10 people before me did.  He walked in today and said, "do you know who Freddie Prinze  Jr. is?  Do I look like him?" so technically, it was a leading question (thought I HAVE thought it)

-- Marzipan is deliiiiiiiiiiiiiiicious.

-- My mother sent me a simple note today with a picture of Nick Swisher in caricature form (I <3 that Meathead).  She signed it with a little 'self-portrait' of a smiley face with some hair.  She captioned it, I look like an orangutan with straight hair!.
People wonder why I am weird.  They need look no further than my mother in her prime.

--I do not have cancer.  I am relieved, as you might guess.  I have a set of moles/birthmarks on my right arm that to me look disfigured.  I was nervous.  It didn't seem fair, because I always wear long sleeves and when I don't, I've got sunblock on and in my 24 years have only had a sunburn twice.  The doctor took a look and assured me they were perfectly fine.

-- I wonder if it's telling of anything that when I was writing the word 'wear' up in the last little blurb, I wrote 'weird' and then had to erase it.

-- Must.Clean.Room.

...Twins lost

During that first year after her baby boy’s death, Danielle was numb. She had heard people describe feeling “numb” before and didn’t get it, at the time. She’d never been to a funeral in her life. Her son was her first. She had made it through the funeral. Had made it through packing up her child’s things. Made it through packing up their apartment where she was so happy. She had come into a new kind of existence. One of mind numbing depression. Going through the motions. That was all she could manage.

 

Thankfully she was numb when she had her miscarriage. She and Jack had agreed to their plan and Project Recovery was in action. In reality it was still too early for Danielle. She was excited about the prospect of a new baby. But in a desperate kind of way. Like after you’ve had too much coffee and you feel great. Alive. Motivated. But on edge. Caught between a scream of triumph and a scream of make it stop.

 

She found out she was pregnant right after the holidays. She didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas that year. It was brutal. She thought she’d be celebrating Ben’s first Thanksgiving. First Christmas. She thought he’d be mashing potatoes and pumpkin pie into his face. She thought she’d be shopping for the first time ever for Christmas gifts for her own child. Not to be. She pretended it wasn’t November. Then she pretended it wasn’t December. But then January rolled around and she took the test. At the earliest possible moment. It was positive. She couldn’t believe it. She was too raw to be happy. Too jaded to be hopeful. And too scared to contemplate what happens next. Seeing the plus sign was bittersweet for Danielle. How could she not relive the moment she discovered she had Ben? 9 months of life and preparation flooded her mind. Followed by 9 months of death and desperation. It was too soon.

 

She wasn’t shocked when she started bleeding. It would take a long time for an event to have the ability to shock her anymore. She was used to bad things happening and really, in the scheme of things, this loss was nothing. In the state of depression she was in, she didn’t expect anything good to happen anyway. So that was that.

 

It took Danielle 6 more months to get pregnant again. She was in a better place. Not great. Not even good. But keeping her head above water. She had joined a SIDS support group and met 2 moms who had lost their first born to SIDS. They were each other’s life lines. They were the only ones who really knew how the other was feeling. Tracy was the veteran. She had lost her daughter 2 months before Ben. Rhonda was the newbie. She lost her daughter 3 months after Ben. Between the three of them, they survived. Somehow.

 

Danielle was ready for the plus sign this time. Time had given her a tiny bit of hope. A small glimmer of what might be. And she also had a plan. This time if something bad happened, she would end her life too. This plan wasn’t born out of melodrama. Not born out of sobbing, wringing of the hands, shell shocked grief. This plan was Danielle’s sigh of relief. She would never have to go through what she had been through ever. She had a plan. She had that scenario covered and could move forward.

 

Jack and Danielle’s friends at the restaurant were ecstatic for them. How exciting! A baby! Surprised that Danielle was with Jack in the first place. But who can judge? They were simply happy that finally something good was in store. A new chapter had begun. Everyone was ready. Ready to be done with not knowing what to say. Not knowing what to do. Not knowing how to help. Finally something easy. Something they could all do. Be happy.

 

Danielle went to her first appointment right on schedule at 12 weeks. She’d made it through the first months and was cautiously optimistic that a baby might be born. She went to her appointment alone. Jack had to work. Danielle was slightly disappointed, but after all, this was her plan. So she sat in the stirrups and waited. The doctor had been apprised of her situation and was appropriately delicate with Danielle. She offered the right amount of acknowledgement and sympathy for Danielle and Ben and moved on. Excited about the new baby they would be learning about together. She proceeded to listen for the baby’s heartbeat. They listened intently. They moved around the stethoscope and listened intently. Danielle tried shifting positions and they listened intently. Nothing. No sound. No racing gallop of baby heart beat. Only the sounds of silence.

 

But the doctor assured Danielle not to worry. Maybe the due date was off. Maybe the baby was simply not in a good position to hear. But to ease Danielle’s mind because of what she’d been through, let’s just do a vaginal ultrasound. Just to ease Danielle’s mind. And let’s do it right away the doctor said. The doctor gave her a referral to another office that was equipped with the ultrasound machine. They were waiting for her. By this point Danielle was numb, again. She hadn’t really thought something positive could happen to her again anyway. She hadn’t really had her hopes raised. Not really. She prepared herself for the inevitable. No baby. Starting over. Again. People sorry for her. Again. People not knowing what to say to her. Again. People avoiding her. Again. Darkness. Again.

 

She climbed onto the table and the technician was all business. Danielle could tell by the eye contact avoidance that she knew. She knew Danielle’s story. Danielle feared she would forever be remembered as that poor woman who lost her baby. It was a small town. Everyone knew. She hated that everyone knew. She hated the invasion of privacy. She hated everyone knowing her business. She hated having to put on a brave face. Mostly she hated being “that poor woman”.

 

Within a matter of minutes Danielle lay in a darkened room, with a vaginal monitor inserted and was looking at a black and white monitor. Once the technician got the image she had been looking for, Danielle’s doctor was summoned to the room. Danielle had to wait. Alone. In the dark. She knew it was bad. Why else would they call in the doctor? She waited. Palms sweating. Reminding herself that she didn’t expect anything good anyway.

 

The doctor swept into the room apologizing for making Danielle wait. She confirmed the image on the screen. She looked down at Danielle and asked her if she could make out what she was seeing. Danielle answered she could not. The doctor pointed at some indecipherable image on the screen and told Danielle that was the embryonic sac. Right there was one. And right there was one. And there is one heart beat. And there is one heart beat. The doctor explained that the reason they couldn’t hear the heartbeat was because the sacs were on top of each other. Making it too dense to hear her twin’s tiny 12 week old hearts. She offered congratulations to Danielle and breathed a sigh of relief for herself. She didn’t have to give this poor woman more bad news. She printed the frozen screen, removed the monitor, advised Danielle to make her follow up appointment for next month and was gone.

 

Danielle got dressed and walked out of the clinic. In a daze. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t the plan. She could do one baby. She couldn’t do two. She knew enough to know she was now a high risk pregnancy. Something would go wrong. That was a given. The odds that her child would die of SIDS were not high, and he did. The odds that she would have problems in her pregnancy were high, hence “high risk pregnancy”. This wasn’t in the plan. But as we all know plans change.