Yep, there's still a baby in there

Friday was my OB appointment and my first ultrasound scan since I was 21 weeks.  This is going to sound weird, but periodically, I would wonder if there was really still a baby in there, even though I felt him moving around.  Maybe it had turned into a cat?  I made a joke about this to Jeeves awhile ago and he said, "Look, I'm going to be honest.  If you gave birth to Abbott, I wouldn't be disappointed."  Yeah, we both still really miss Abbott.  
Anyway, even though my OB's office is pretty good about taking you in quickly for your regular appointments, that is not the case for ultrasounds.  We waited about 40 minutes before we finally got called back, and we were both really nervous.  It wasn't even really about whether it was a cat or a baby in there.  I've mentioned before that I'm in a small private pregnancy group on Facebook with a bunch of other infertiles that I met on a forum when I was doing IF treatment.  Almost all of them are pregnant through IVF.  In the group (approximately 30 women, but only about 20 or so regularly post and comment), there were several sets of twins - three of them have been delivered now (2 due to preterm labor, and 1 due to pre-eclampsia).  One of the singletons was also just born following induction due to pre-eclampsia.  And another woman in the group also has pre-e and she's delivering tonight due to skyrocketing blood pressure.  So, pre-e is definitely on my brain and Jeeves and I get tense every time they take my blood pressure (which has been totally normal from the start).   But aside from the pre-e, I've heard plenty of stories about how there's low fluid at an ultrasound scan, etc., and they send you off to the hospital.  So, yeah, nervous.

In the end, there was nothing to worry about, although I have to take their word for it that it's still a baby in there - things are crowded and you can't really see anything.  Manuji is head down.  My fluid level was fine, and he was measuring well in terms of growth (estimate was 6lbs 2oz).  Then we saw the OB.  I'm in a group practice, so right now I've been cycling through the other doctors to make sure I meet everyone who could be on call the day of delivery.  Friday's doctor, Dr. D, was great - we both liked her a lot.  I felt a little bad for her because we had just had our hospital tour and we had a lot of questions.  But she handled it very well and didn't rush us.  I also had my first vag exam since forever!  She couldn't feel my cervix at all, but said that's normal for the stage I'm at.  Let's hope at some point in the not too distant future Manuji drops down.

So now I'm going in every week, and I'll get an ultrasound each time to check fluid levels and movement.  Hopefully every scan will go as well as this one did.  

On to the shitty news, because this can't just be a nice little post about our OB appointment.  I've noted lately that Dad is very fatigued (probably due to the chemo-induced anemia) and that he seems to have some mental confusion.  It's not like when he was dehydrated where I would ask him a question and he would trail off mid-sentence and struggle to understand simple concepts.  Our conversations are perfectly normal, but he has been mixing up days (it'll be a Thursday, but he'll be so convinced it's Friday that he gets in the car and drives to a doctor's appointment he has on Friday).  There have been a couple of other things too.  My sister freaked out about yesterday and I spent a good chunk of time texting with her about it.  

Anyway, Dad went to his chemo appointment today.  I had wanted to go with him, but physically I just couldn't do it.  To put it in perspective, I went for a one mile walk (roundtrip) with Jeeves on Saturday and I had to lie down for an hour afterwards.  A drive to Jersey followed by the running around I would do out there for Dad would probably wreck me.  So, I talked to Dad a little while ago and his chemo was cancelled - his hemoglobin has dropped even lower.  Tomorrow he's getting a blood transfusion.  I'm glad that his doctor is dealing with the problem appropriately, but I wish I were there.  I know logically I can't, but I still feel shitty about it.  I wish my sister would go with him, but I know that a) Dad wouldn't see the point in that because she's basically clueless on the medical stuff; and b) she wouldn't offer to go anyway.  I texted her to tell her what was going on, and her super compassionate response was that she thinks Dad should stop doing chemo altogether, but that she "guesses" he has to come to that decision on his own.  Ugh.  Yes, it's so annoying how people get to make their own decisions about their medical care.  Look, I feel that the chemo has been making Dad quite sick for the last 8 months or so, and I realize that he may have reached a point where he just can't tolerate any chemo anymore.  But I also know that he keeps at it because he's not ready to call it quits yet and he wants to be around his family for as long as he can - that's why he keeps doing this.  And I love that about him.  When my sister says stuff like this, whether she means to or not, it sounds like, "Ugh, Dad's cancer is an inconvenience to me and I wish he would just give up already so we can sell his house."  When Dad told Sissy about Dr. T's prognosis back in March, my sister gave him some schpiel about how he shouldn't worry about us, that we'd be fine.  "I think he was really glad I said that," she told me, proudly.  "Sissy, it's not really that he worries about leaving us.  It's that he doesn't want to leave us.  He doesn't want to die and he's scared and sad about it."  I don't know if she got it.

We lost our mom suddenly and while that was awful, in some ways it was a blessing because our mom was our mom up until she died.  With Dad, he's been sick and he's needed help and it's been stressful and a source of worry and in some ways he's very different from who my dad was a couple of years ago.  There's more a parent/child reversal when you're dealing with sick, elderly parents.  It's been tough.  I wish Sissy were more willing to help.  I wish she would at least call him up and say, "Hey, I'll take you for that blood transfusion tomorrow."  

Baby CPR this week!  And hopefully I'll waddle my way to the nursing bra store so they can help me figure out what size I'm supposed to buy.  37 weeks today.  Unbelievable.  One year ago this week we started our two week ultrasound roller coaster hell where we found out the bean was not viable.  And now we're here.  37 weeks.