Tagged

I've been tagged, by Katherine (which is incidentally my middle name...hmmmm...) and Laurie
so i'll jump in the fun

1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
3. When you are tagged, you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged & to read your blog!

K itten Fur - my nickname growing up. acceptable derivatives include furball, furbie, furface, meomeow face, furburator etc...
A dventurer.
T rash TV -My favorite shows are"My supersweet 16", "Real World - Road Rules Challenge", "Flavor of Love, and all spin off shows"
H omeschooled.
E x scrapbooker - basically i suck so i quit
R etro
I ntrovert
N ew mom to be!
E xtra happy to have the day off work today! - some kind of military training holiday

You guys, that was actually really hard.
seriously. it took me a whole episode of "Flavor of Love - Charm School" to finish that little task. Anyway, i'm also breaking the rules for tagging. If you're kiddo is (or was) in Thanh Hoa, consider yourself tagged....Beverly (and Andrea, but i don't think you have a blog). Those are the only people I know so far with a Thanh Hoa baby, so hopefully some will come out of the woodwork!

also, about tv. my family never had a TV growing up. well, actually we had this little black and white tv that only tuned into 1 channel via antenna. When my little brother broke it we never got another one. Until high school, but we still never had cable. that's why it's so weird that i love Trash TV. I always kinda wanted to be a no-tv family when i had kids, since there are so many better things for kids to do than watch tv, but i'm not sure if that will ever happen...

Are you a no TV family? I'd love to hear your comments!

Autonomy

WARNING...potentially graphic images of and about surgery.

ahhh, Friday afternoon. On fridays I am supposed to be in the ultrasound clinic, learning how to do level II ultrasounds. To be frankly honest I hate doing ultrasounds. I can do all the basics, tell you if you've got a boy or a girl. Approximate the baby's weight with a growth scan, and all that good stuff. What I hate about ultrasounds is all the little tiny detailed stuff. Looking at the small vessels in the heart, and trying to measure just exactly how big is that little fold of skin on the back of the neck. you see, that takes patience. which i do not have (although i am learning through adoption). I plan to never do high risk ultrasounds when i am out of residency. There are people trained specifically for that craziness. So often on fridays i play catch up on my leftover work from the week.... or blog. :)

after my last post about the frustration with the c/sections here, a couple of people brought up elective cesarean sections. Right now OB is pretty much my life. I do OB more than i do anything else. I'm at the hospital more than I am home. And in spite of that, i still love to talk about it. so hopefully i don't bore you guys. and if i do bore you, there are like a million awesome posts out in adoption blog world right now, so you can go check those out.

Remember, my point of view is a little different. I'm a resident, so i get paid exactly the same amount whether the baby comes out of the abdomen, or out the "regular" way (which from here on out will be referred to as the vajinga, hoo-ha, or cookie). Also, i am in the military. Which means there is a combination of more rules, and less rules, and none of the rules make any sense.

I get asked to perform an elective cesarean about once a month. mostly by girls about 19 or 20 years old. we call it the "too posh to push" mentality. Hey, if Britney spears can request a c/s, why can't everyone? Sometimes i get asked to do it because the patient is scared. I had 1 lady who had reportedly never been "intimate". no, it wasn't the immaculate conception. she was single, and underwent artificial insemination. Which is great. I'm happy that she is going to be a mom. But she also wanted a c/s. This was a mature, adult, educated woman. She was terrified of pushing a child out. I can actually kind of understand her mentality, but when you think that the alternative is having your abodmen cut open, your muscles divided, your uterus then cut open, the alternative doesn't sound too fun either.

how natural is this??

anyway, i go back and forth on this whole issue. Which brings up the point, to what level do we allow an adult to make their own decision about their medical care. You are allowed to choose vaccinations vs. no vaccinations. You can choose circumcision vs. no circumcision. You can sign up to have implants put in your breasts, or fat sucked out of your butt. In fact, you don't get thrown in jail for drinking vodka, or injecting heroine while you're pregnant. So why not allow a women to choose if her baby comes out of her abdomen or her hoo-ha.

I am a big fan of autonomy, but i don't know where to draw the line. I'm still internally debating this whole issue. So if you have comments, i'd love to hear them.

Lately i guess i think that if someone requests a c/s, and gets very thorough counseling about all the complications...serious ones to include a hysterectomy or colostomy if there is bowel injury, and not so serious ones to include wound breakdown.

If after all the counseling and questions and answers the patient STILL wants a c/s, i guess i'm pretty much cool with that decision.

And to dispel a couple of common rumors about vajinga deliveries

-the act of BEING pregnant contributes more to pelvic relaxation and urinary incontinence, not necessarily the act of delivery

-little tiny 110 pound women CAN successfully deliver 8 and 9 pound babies. I've seen it. so "it's not gonna fit" is not an indication for a c/s. the only way to know if it will come out is to try.

and i guess that's basically all for now.

In an upcoming post, if you're not too tired of cookie talk, Cosmetic Gynecology. And yes, that is an actual specialty, in fact i am going to a conference of Cosmetic gynecologists in none other than Las Vegas in December.

still no travel dates, but I'm suprisingly still pretty relaxed about it. I am still hoping for september, so maybe starting next week i will have some freak out sessions.

In Memory of Katie: 1992-2007

Ever since my darling wife started this blog, she has been trying to get me to post but I’ve been leaving it to her until now. So, what motivated me to finally write a post for our blog?

Last week our family lost a dear member – Our beloved Siberian Husky, Katie.

Katie came to our family in the summer of 1992 when she was just a few weeks old. She was sort of the runt of her litter and was a little more shy than the rest of her brothers and sisters but I chose her over the rest and mom and I brought her home. I couldn’t resist those pale blue eyes. She could almost fit in one of my hands at the time.

Katie quickly became an integral part of our family and I have many great memories of her playful demeanor. In her early years, she would run endless circles around the barnyard with our miniature schnauzer, Timmy in tow. She quickly learned that every time Grandma and Grandpa Stickley’s car came back the driveway that a treat was on its way. She loved being outside, snooping through the barns and digging holes in the yard. And though she grew up in the Midwest, her northern blood came out every time we got a snow storm as she couldn’t get enough of romping through drifts taller than her head. Katie was great with kids, tolerating lots of “abuse” from 2-year-old’s, Alex and Lyndsey who loved her so much they couldn’t help but hang on her, pulling her ears and grabbing her tail.

In recent years, Katie slowed down a lot as the many years of being a farm dog started to catch up with her. When I was home last, I spent an extra minute with her before I left, knowing it was probably the last I’d see her. Despite her growing aches and pains, she still did her best to keep up her spunky spirit. Last Saturday night, Katie laid down in her usual spot by the back step and peacefully drifted off to sleep.

The men of my family will never be known as an overtly emotional sort, but we all have an especially soft spot in our heart reserved for our dogs. That’s why I know that her loss will be hardest for my dad. While most dog breeds respond to having several human masters, the strong pack mentality of huskies usually causes them to see one person as their leader. Though Katie showed great affection for every member of her “pack”, happily accepting attention from every member of our family, there was never a doubt that she always was, first and foremost, my dad’s dog. Given the chance, she always chose him over any of the rest of us. All it would take is my dad putting down the tailgate of his truck and saying “let’s go for a ride” and she was off like a shot. At night she lay in the kitchen waiting for my dad to get home from work so she could see her master and to get her nightly chocolate chip cookie.

It was because of Katie that I learned how great the Husky breed is. Despite their stubbornness and extremely independent nature, it is that free spirit that makes them so endearing. It was Katie’s wonderful personality that led me to end up with my Husky, Sherpa. It was Katie that taught me how much a Husky can enrich a person’s life. Katie will be missed, but the joys she brought to all of us will be remembered…

…I’m going to go hug my dog, now.

i'm back

how bad is it that i haven't blogged in so long i almost couldn't remember my blog address. yeah, i suck. I have been crazy crazy busy. not an excuse, just an explanation. there is all this drama at work surrounding the massive deployments, and there is no staff in this crazy hospital. I am in charge of scheduling and doing all the c/sections, and unfortunately there are currently no anesthesia providers. So i can't give the ladies who want c-sections a date for their delivery, which is leading to mobs of angry pregnant women coming at me from all angles at all times of day and night. it's not fun at all.
but that is probably more than you wanted to know about that.

otherwise life is good. Like everyone else in this little bloggy world i am caught up in the gender selection thing. laurie's post was outstanding, as usual. i read her post and like 6 other posts and all the comments, so i'm kinda tired of reading about it, but i HAVE to throw in my 2 cents because i can't not have something to say. Back when the discussion was all about agency ethics I pled naivity. also not an excuse, just an explanation. I had no clue there was ever even a difference between agencies. same thing with the gender issue. When they asked if we wanted a boy or a girl we said "hmmm..a girl might be nice" so we put girl. and when they asked what age we said "hmmmm...a little baby might be nice". so we ended up with Baby Girl as young and healthy as possible. like 5 million other people.
I'm really not as stupid as that paragraph makes me sound (I somehow made it through medical school for crying out loud). and i really didn't leap into adoption absolutely clueless. i just didn't know about all of these issues. If we backtracked to October 15, 2006, and i knew everything i now know, i don't know if i would make the same decisions i made then.
If (and by if i really mean when) we adopt again we will adopt a waiting child. Suddenly gender, and even age, and even special needs doesn't seem nearly as important as becoming a family. I love that adoptive parents have the ability to choose certain things in adoption. There are so MANY MANY things that we have no control over, and leave in the hands of strangers in this crazy process, that its kinda nice to have a choice in some areas. so i don't really care so much about gender selection. In fact, one day (very soon, since it already happens in other countries) my patients will be requesting gender selection for IVF. And as of right now (although i may change my mind), that doesn't really bother me either.

in other news, we got an update today! yippeee yipeee yippeee
Juneau is 3 months old. She weighs 8lbs 12 oz, and is 22 inches long.
and she is extraordinarily cute.
and i am the luckiest person in the whole entire world.

i'm gonna be a better blogger. honest.
it's just i love reading other people's blogs so much that i spend all my free time doing that, and then i don't have any time to write in my own blog. So stop writing such awesome blogs, and maybe then i will blog more.

by the way i love babies. they are so cute and sweet. and i especially think my own baby is adorable and i can't stop looking at the picture i got today. seriously, you guys. i have to stop looking at her picture and get some work done!

our beautiful girl

Updated photo! We are so excited.

Juneau will be 3 months old tomorrow.

She now weighs 8 pounds and 12 ounces and is 22 inches long.

No news on travel, but hopefully we will know something more soon.

2 families that are with our agency returned from vietnam with their babies last week. One family adopted an infant boy, and the other adopted a 13 month old girl.