Baby Update

Babies are unpredictable little critters! You may have plans for them but they have a mind of their own right from the womb. I'm due the middle of next month, and while I had few hopes of being able to go full-term thanks to past history and the fact that this too would be a C-Sec, I had discussed possible dates with my Ob-gyn and figured sometime around the first week of October. So I was all set to work till tomorrow and then take a few days off to prepare and to rest up and enjoy my two brats before going into surgery.

Well, this weekend put paid to that. I get a pregnancy-induced liver condition, cholesthiasis, which basically means the liver turns toxic. There is medication to mitigate the effects, but one of the annoying side effects of the condition is an uncontrollable itch. The soles of your feet itch, the palms of your hands and all kinds of un-gettable-at places, and the point is scratch as you might, the itch doesn't subside and you even find yourself scratching unconsciously and being unable to sit still for a moment. We had anticipated it this time too, because if you get it the first time, it's a 99% possibility of getting it the second and third times around. So my doc had been giving me medicine for it all through but Friday night the cholesthiasis broke through all the defences of the preventive medicine. I've been itching like a monkey hunting lice ever since, unable to sleep and elbows and ankles sore with scratching. the first time I got this itch, I was discovered one morning around 3 a.m. sitting in the bathroom scratching the soles of my feet with the clothes-washing brush. The only thing that prevents me from repeating that this time is the lack of a clothes washing brush in the attached bathroom.

So now, depending on whether I think I can maintain my sanity till Tuesday, the baby is going to pop on Tuesday next week. If I think I may go insane from the itching before that, the operation is likely due Thursday. But Chubbocks has a performance in his school assembly Thursday morning, which he has been mighty excited about for the last month and I think it'd be a shame for me to rain on his parade. So then I'll beg the doc for one more day and haul myself in to surgery Friday. Until then, if you come across a 5'5" woman the size of a house who's scratching herself like she's got fleas, come say Hi!