Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces

ultraparanoid during bangkok ultrasound

with gratitude i report that my annual health check went well. looks like i may have to get some surgery on my uterus, my fibroids are growing on the wrong wall and too quickly. trust me to have an ambitious fibroid. but it can be removed laproscopically, probably, which is good news.

i don't give the health check up much thought going into it, but every year, when i lay down for the internal organ ultrasound, i get a little paranoid. especially since i cannot understand what the x-ray folk are saying. after a couple of minutes the little doubts start darting through the haze of my minimal discomfort.

the x-ray tech seems to be spending a lot of time in that spot.

i try to dismiss that thought, to no avail. yes, it seems she is.

click, she freezes the image.

why? what is wrong?

click. there she goes again, same spot. she didn't move enough for it to be a different organ...same organ. why did she freeze two images of the same thing is nothing is wrong?

she wouldn't.

ergo - something is wrong.

from then on, my mind battles as the logical side of my brain tries to track where the ultrasound probe is going, while the fearful side of me starts imagining which organ they have found a shadow, or lump in. i harken back to the human chart and try to remember where each of the organs are, but instead i just remember what colours they were. in desperation i try to remember playing operation, and where the organs were, but i only remember the funny bone, and today, that is not relevant.

i try to fight this rising panic off, and focus on following the reaction of my skin as the gel spreads against it, which is the best way i have of keeping track of where the probe is, and where it is pausing.

one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi

i want to ask what is wrong but i don't. this is a routine ultrasound, because of the history of cancer in my family they are being very careful.

is it just me or is the probe coming back to the same spot and just examining it from different angles?

it is, yes, yes it is. im sure of it.

is the ultrasound tech moving the probe that way so spread the gel evenly or because she needs to get yet another look?

why am i being asked to hold my breath? my lungs? they need to measure the spots on my lungs? have the 20 smuggled cigarettes of my youth caught up with me? if nothing was wrong, surely i wouldn't need to do this inhale exhale thing more than five times. i have done it 12 times now.

and holy mother mary....a doctor just walked in. did the tech call for him? i didn't hear her. but then again, that could be explained by the fact that she only speaks THAI.

he repeats the ultrasound.

a doctor...this is not good.

still, i refuse to ask what is wrong, because i know i will not be told until they want to tell. like painting taught the karate kid how to block, seeing infertility and epilepsy docs have taught me that you don't get answers until they're ready.

finally, the pressure is off my stomach. i don't realise this because i am weighted down with fear. i don't try to stare at the ultrasound screen. even when there were babies in the ultrasound screen i could rarely understand what everything meant...ultrasounds just look like one grey where's waldo's to me.

'miss terrrreeeesa muhvnornen (not correct way to pronounce, but i appreciate the effort) leeon..you may move now."

it's the tech again.

the doctor is still there.

"everything looks okay." he goes to to explain that the fibroid is growing and that my gallbladder is still oversized but i confess i didn't hear much. i am luxuriating in the world "okay".

i am okay.

i know i could get hit by a bus crossing the street (especially since i am not the most pedantic observer of cross walks) or food poisoning or whatever or whenever..but having charles beside me and h earing the doctor declare us both to be healthy individuals was such a benediction. not that we had been worried, and not that this declaration guarantees us a longer life...but it sweetened the weekend for us, somehow. for those few paranoid minutes, we faced the concept of a shortened life. and suddenly we realised those fears were not coming to fruition. they were just fears and we were just fine.

we had a wonderful weekend together, and sunday morning, i woke up and knew that despite having reservations to fly home the next morning, i wanted to fly home that evening with magnificent. so, i called the agent and changed flights (at a cost of $100us), cancelled my next day appointment and hotel reservations, and got a facial, before heading out to the airport.

and at the airport, we were upgraded to business class.

i won the lottery, for another year.

noxema hopes and dancing woes

i have a not so secret dream: i would love to be a spokesperson for noxema.

i am a true noxema girl, i have been using it since i was 12 years old. i have always loved that smell. cleanliness, youth, summer, showers.

15 years ago, noxema came up with a campaign featuring women in their 50's and i was thrilled. the women weren't modelly 50 year old christie brinklie types (complete with erring husbands) they were regular women. maybe maybe i hoped, i could be a noxema woman. because i AM a noxema girl now. all i have to do is keep using. i wouldn't have to pretend. i do love the product. and maybe they would give me some gratis. don't tell my dad, but i would do it for free, though.

you can bet that i slathered myself in noxema following yesterday's tess meets potential avian flu duck feet incident. wow. that was really something. but the kids liked it and are looking forward to going back to "playgoop".

the kids are also liking dora the explorer. i started them watching dora this year in hopes of weaning them off the wiggles. i was getting tired of doing the same old wiggles dance routines over and over again. and of course, since we don't get dora on television here, i didn't know that dora has it's own vaguely addicting bits.

and my dear readers, none of you mentioned it either.

so, now all my kids are attempting to snap. not because they are going to form their own doo-wop gang and make a little extra cash, but because they want to be a real authentic swiper, and snap disappointedly to accompany their "awww maaaaaaaaaaaan!" nice. very classy.

and of course, then there is the fact that at the end of just about every dora episode (and granted, we only have six), there is the triumphant dora dance. she swings her arms back and forth with her silly monkey and maybe diego the cousin..."we did it, we did it! we worked together and we worked real hard and we did it!" oh yes, mummy do the dora dance" (which i am getting quite good at) is a popular request in the house. at least with the wiggles i could vary my routine , but celluloid dora only offers me one dance. she's an explorer for goodness sake; i expected her to be a little more adventurous and to offer me a little more variety. but apparently not.

aawwww maaan!

rubber duckie you're so fun

today the triplets joined a cantonese speaking playgroup. it is very local, and in a very colonial old building, with high ceilings, lots of space and sunshine. interestingly, there are only five kids in the class, and four of them are blonde. the other blondie is charlie, who is sebastian's friend annie's younger brother. you have seen pictures of charlie before, he is the trip's age, quite verbal and determined, but not in the same way that annie is determined. (if you forget who annie is, go back to early july when i took them for shoe shine pictures, remember the shoe shines? the girl with the curls is annie. always has been.)

so the four walked into the cantonese school quite confidently, looking like blonde bounty hunters. they were wary of the talking puppet (how come the hands were moving?) but liked the exercises, and the learning. one of the fun learning counting exercises was hiding a bucket of squeaky little plastic ducks and then each child was given a bucket and told to collect the little rubber duckies. they happily raced around the room, trying to recall where they had hidden the yellow escapees. then it was back to the circle, where everyone counted their bounty. yat, yee, sam, sey, mm, lok...

of course the triplets aren't counting like that, but they were getting the point.

at one point the teacher had the kids sit down and brought out something covered in aluminium foil. having been to my share of these playschool things, i cast my practised eye to the the clock and thought, hmm, a little early for snack, but maybe since it's the first day...

she asked everyone to put their fingers under the foil and feel the content. i caught the colour and thought it was chips. but the substance made me think of tofu.

she ripped off the foil and i found myself staring at duck feet ( i actually thought they were chicken at first). REAL DUCK. feathers, quacking...that sort of duck. except for the feet (legs?) were no longer attached to the body and the feet (legs?) were definitely in the deceased category.

the teacher pulled out some paper and paint, and picked up a duck foot, and said that we should daub the foot in the paint, then press it on the paper. she placed a foot on the green, yellow, blue, purple, brown, red and black paint and told us to go to it. i picked up a foot and sela let me know she would not be touching it. for whatever reasons. fine. i gamely pressed on.

and of course, at a time like this, i am looking around the colours and wondering,

"hey, i'm working with duck, aren't they supposed to serve it with orange?"

and then we had snack. biscuits and plums.

not caught, no cot

the minute people found out charles and i were expecting triplets, many announced, "i bet you will now have one naturally". they said it in a knowing sort of voice.

what is so unnatural about conceiving children in a laboratory? that the woman is passed out? don't know what part of the world you're from, folks, but let me reassure you, it is not uncommon for children to be created while one or both partners are passed out. (or pretending to be).

three years post triplets, the predictions for their miracle sibling continue. magnificent chalres and i continue along in our non birth control manner. we're careful-ish with dates, but not extraordinarily. the best way to describe our birth control is to say we are confident in our infertility. i've got fibroids growing all over the place, i barely ovulate...not a good candidate for pregnancy. not to worry.

yet people like to believe we will have another baby, and thus have plenty to say when they hear we are ridding ourselves of baby gear.

to be honest, losing the baby gear is tough.

there was the little white crib, sebastian's fourth home. his first home was my chest where he slept for the first two nights at the matilda hospital. what a good baby he was. the third night, he slept on charles chest. the fourth night, he slept in a a4 box that charles lined with a blanket for him (can you tell we had experience taking in stray animals? but not so much experience with kids at the time?). and after fretting that the box wasn't such a great home, he was moved to the little white crib.

the little white crib was also home to the triplets. first jasper, then sela, then jasper and sela, then jasper, sela and carys. they slept together side by side, swaddled like sausages in their casings. until it was time for jasper and carys to find their own little white cribs. (sela got the little white crib because it was apparent from the first that she was the one who would try to climb out of the crib first and lo and behold, she was. the little white crib was deeper than the other two.)

the little white crib has teethmarks of rage from "undeserved" timeouts, dents from falls, absorbed tears...the little white crib was the scene of where every mother has that watermark moment in her life, when her child raises their arms to be lifted up.

the little white crib has been searched as thoroughly as any suspected drug thief for hidden soothers, the little white crib almost shone in the darkness when sweaty children were coughing and getting over three day sicknesses.

the little white crib is just a symbol of days gone by.

i think that's the problem. they are days gone by. i certainly dont want to relive those days with my four or any more, but letting go of the physical is such a definite acknowledgement those days are gone.

today i was lying reading "Franklin in the dark" to sebastian and i was stroking his leg and i realised that there is going to be a time when he doesn't let me scratch his calf.

i wonder if i will want to, when he is all grown up, if i will ever get the urge just to cuddle him again.

i have always disliked the book "LOVE YOU FOREVER" thinking that the mother is a little bit off her rocker, but as i get rid of the cots and rockers in my house, i am beginning to feel a little sorry for her.

"i can't believe that with all the unwanted children in the world just waiting for a good home that people spend so much on infertility treatments."

why do so many fertile's of the world believe it is the sole duty of the infertile couples to adopt? the natural order of things, as it may? WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY. what exempts you, oh fertile ones*, from adopting? because you can conceive naturally you don't HAVE TO?

a woman had the gall to ask an infertile friend of mine the above question the other day. she knew my friend had just endured another negative ivf cycle, and felt it appropriate to ask. my friend, was silent. however, a few minutes later, she found the woman and asked her, "why didn't you and your husband adopt?"

the response? come on, i am sure you can predict it. say it with me.....

"we don't need to, we can have our own."

what gives these fertiles the right to judge infertile couples on the quest for a child? isn't their road tough enough without condemnation? don't they have the right to spend the money in the manner they wish? certainly they could have adopted. but instead of eating dinner out the other night, the fertiles could have given a child in a third world country clean drinking water for one year. vitamins. a blanket, maybe. oh, that's different, is it? excuse me, i wasn't aware.

is adoption only for infertile couples? as someone who hasn't adopted (but tried before pursuing fertility treatment) it seems that a large percentage of people who adopt have had fertility issues. it is "traditional" to have children "the good old fashioned way". fair enough. it seems odd, having a baby where drugs and doctors are only involved in delivery instead of at conception (not to mention the petri dish). or as magnificent says, "i'm the father of our babies, but our doctor is the man who got you pregnant."

i'm digressing.

i have never adopted a child so i cannot adequately write what it IS. but i know what it isn't. adoption is not a BURDEN that automatically falls to infertiles by default.

* i don't mean all fertile people. you know i don't.