My New Favorite Place

I suppose in the world of blogs there are people who reveal too much and those that reveal too little. Maybe some writers go insane by bouncing in between. For those of you who get freaked out about personal information, this entry isn't for you. Feel free to skip today and come back tomorrow.

For everyone else, I want to tell you about my first trip to Planned Parenthood in 14 years. 

Today's visit was uplifting, and it made me think that the world of health care isn't turned upside down everywhere. 

I arrived for my appointment at the Champaign office of Planned Parenthood of Illinois at 1:35 p.m. I handed over my ID and insurance card for my 1:45 p.m. appointment. As a new patient, I had to fill out a plethora of paperwork. Some of it was the usual insurance items and emergency contact numbers. I also filled out some health history and read over the information on the Mirena IUD that the clinician was going to insert that day.

If you're new to my blog, I've been living with (suffering through) low iron since last August. Even on supplements, my blood work has gotten worse. Now I have low ferritin, low protein and low platelets. In January, I had an ultrasound. It took 60 days for my ob/gyn to have an open appointment time to tell me what was in the ultrasound (a benign tumor called a fibroid) and to give me advice on how best to proceed. Then it was going to take another 30 days to get another appointment to actually proceed. And two days before that appointment, my doctor had to cancel for another more emergent case. I asked the nurse for anyone else in the office that could do it, but she never called back. So, I went around big brother Carle and called up Planned Parenthood. They got me in 7 days later. And if you know me, efficiency wins every time. The IUD is supposed to lessen the blood flow of my periods, so that I (keep your fingers crossed) am able to retain iron stores. 

After I finished my paperwork and turned it into the medical assistant at the Planned Parenthood desk, I looked up and saw this poster. 

Underneath the Food, Sleep, Sex, it talks about how those are the three basic biological instincts of a human. Then it says, "If your sex life is good, Planned Parenthood is here to help you celebrate it. If your sex life could be better, Planned Parenthood is here to help you improve it."

I fell in love at that moment, and wanted the poster on a t-shirt so I could wear it everywhere. 

When they called my name about 30 minutes later as I was flipping through a Pregnancy magazine. (There were a lot of different types of parent-focused magazines and, of course, Oprah). My name was called by a smiling, welcoming employee. She weighed me (the sweet woman was nice to start the weighing at 100 lbs. I laughed and told her to bump it up a notch). Then she had me give her a urine sample. Afterwards she went over some medical information and then explained that a clinician would come in to do the insertion. 

While I waited another 10 minutes in my lovely paper drape. I checked out the small exam room. In it was a sign that listed the patient's rights and responsibilities. The second line was a welcoming statement that said: "Welcome to Planned Parenthood of Illinois. Regardless of race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation or economic standing..." All inclusive and efficient. This keeps getting better. Don't have any money -- no problem. 

Now, I know that most people hear Planned Parenthood and immediately draw a line from it to abortion. Abortion is a topic that gets everyone hot and bothered. So bothered, that it appears our country may well be headed to a government shutdown because of it. People paint PP as a place that encourages abortion. But I took a photo of the most prominent poster in the room.

And I don't get how anyone can get angry about a place that teaches those ABC values. The other largest informational piece in the room (I forgot to take a photo of it) were pamphlets about adoption tucked away near the "desk area." PP is a full service sexual health organization. Do they provide abortions? Yes, they do, but that is not at all the primary use of that organization. While I was there, several women came in to obtain birth control. One guy was there for testing. We all had different services and contraceptives to choose from. And although I'm not using my IUD as a way to prevent pregnancy (MacTroll took care of that six months after X-man was born). It was nice to have a choice. I'm also sure no one in that building as making more than $30,000. They were there to take care of patients in need. There's something heroic about that. 

When the clinician came in, she smiled just as warmly as the woman who weighed me. She asked me to tell her what I knew about the Mirena, so I went over what I'd read on the paper they gave me, as well as the take care after insertion instructions and what my friends had told me about their experiences. She seemed pleased with the amount of information I'd retained and then she filled in any holes and answered my questions. The IUD is a plastic T-shape device. Mirena has a small amount of progesterone that is released in adequate amounts over the next 5 years. That's a long time. The hormone is what should help my monthly periods lessen or possibly even stop all together. And for anyone wondering, you can have the device removed and have no problem getting pregnant within 12 months of its removal (I don't have the desire to birth another child, but in case someone else did... I thought you should know.)

Then we went through the insertion. I'm not going to lie to you. It was somewhat uncomfortable, but anything that involves a clamp and a cervix can't be all that much of a party, right? If you thought a speculum was bad though, it pales to the clamp. Fifteen minutes later, it was in. She gave me some time to make sure I wasn't lightheaded and then left the room while I got dressed. That's when I noticed the calendar on the wall from some agricultural group that deals in sheep reproduction. It gives the "Next Heat date" and a "Due date" for the flock to make it easier on farmers. I thought that was quite funny for a Planned Parenthood.

When the clinician came back we went over the discharge instructions again, and then she walked me out where I paid a $20 co-pay for the device. Then I left. I got in my RAV-4 and I noticed a mother and a young woman standing on the sidewalk by the parking lot. I thought, "Isn't that nice? A family just hanging out in front of a family planning facility." Another patient was coming out of the clinic and getting on her bike to ride away. I was driving slowly behind her. As we passed the family, I noticed the two women suddenly had rosary in hand and were reading from a small bible. 

And I thought to myself: "Awwww, isn't that nice? They're blessing my new IUD." ;-)

I have to tell you, if Planned Parenthood offered full service GP needs and radiology... I'd go there for every medical need I had in an instant. Plus, their facility is about to get a much needed physical rehab. So when I go back in six weeks for my recheck, they should be working on the parking lot entry way, and the clinic is supposedly moving up to the second floor. 

Anyway, it was the most positive medical experience outside of weight management that I'd had in a long while. So, I thought I'd talk it up. :-) 

A Shot in the Dark

At the conference we were at in San José at the beginning of last month, a colleague of MacTroll's from Sydney mentioned that one of the fruit's key brainiacs on that continent was going to be on leave for a year working on becoming a colonel in the Australian army... and perhaps some of the U.S. brainiacs might be interested in helping out.

At the idea of crossing the Pacific again, MacTroll's eyes widened, his ears perked, and a bit of drool slipped out of the side of his mouth. We looked at the calendar and indeed, we have eight to ten weeks this summer where we could, supposedly, skip town for a couple months -- during the Australian winter -- and spend some time in Sydney before X-man starts kindergarten in the fall.

MacTroll doubts that he'll be able to go. He has enough work on his plate. But he also spent 5 years in Europe when his Dad worked abroad from almost his birth until age 5. And although he remembers no French from his time in Geneva, and really only has memories based an a few images left over in his brain and the stories his parents and brothers have told him, he has always thought it would be fun to work somewhere else for a while.

And if he wouldn't have had to pay taxes twice by working in the U.S. when I wanted to reside in Montreal before X-man was born... he would have gone for that move in a flash, too.

Outside of the crazy long plane ride from here to Sydney with a child, I think it would actually be awesome, too.

I guess we'll wait and see.

Rain, rain go away

I will know by 7 a.m. tomorrow if the rain is going to ruin all of our outdoor plans for Saturday (including X-man's beloved T-ball practice at 9 a.m. and going to cheer on Big J's soccer team at 11:30 a.m.).

And it's hard, particularly when you're all excited for your fun-filled weekend.

As it is, since the forecast is for thunderstorms, we set up the four person tent in X-man's room. He and MacTroll are currently reading library books on it as they camp out indoors.

I guess if Saturday goes south, I'll be at the gym bright and early.

Extended Family

I moved out of my mom's house 4 weeks after I graduated from college. Out of the 4 years I was in college, I lived at home for one summer, but I worked 2 jobs that summer so was hardly home. We never had a grandparent live with us, and even though my father is the oldest of 4, we really only saw aunts and uncles for major holidays for a few hours. We saw even less of my mother's two siblings. The point being that I've never really had extended family around in my every day life. 

Now that KTDID is returning her Budget rental truck, and all of her possessions are in our basement making kind of an "in-law" suite, it changes the dynamic of the house a bit. I'm about to install a lockable doorhandle to keep X-man out of her area. KTDID has a cat and the apartment is hers -- not to be disrupted by my cats. My cats have been kept out of the basement since my Loosey cat died in February, so that shouldn't be any big deal. She has a lot of storage, a closet and a full bathroom to her disposal, not to mention her own parking area in the garage. 

I am so happy to have her home that I could burst. Somehow I always hated that my best friend barely got to know my favorite person in the whole world -- X-man. And now, she gets to see the delight and the challenge up close and personal. 

As for X-man, he helped carry things to the basement today. And when he couldn't carry things he directed KTDID's family members about where to go. The only thing he is confused about is where KTDID is going to cook her food. When I explain that she'll use our kitchen it crosses the boundary line I'm trying to create that the basement is KTDID's home, and we live upstairs. It, of course, didn't stop him from dragging his doll and crib downstairs. But I'm sure it'll be a work in progress for a while.

In other news, the jackasses at the apartments next to us (I usually find them to be fine neighbors except around the 4th of July) have started setting off fireworks at all hours of the night. Last year they were smart enough to do it over the lake in the park. This year, the dummies just set them off in the middle of the complex. 

In other news, we were supposed to head up to my Dad's on Saturday morning for the holiday, but he currently has the flu with a fever. So, we're going to call him tomorrow a.m. and see how he is. If he's sick, we'll stay here. Which makes me think maybe we'll go to the Monticello fireworks tonight. Should have bought the train ticket, I guess!

Family Vacation -- Day 4

On Wednesday, X-man and I drove to the Koret Children's Quarter in Golden Gate Park. It has the honor of being the first public playground in the United Sates. In the last couple of years it went through a major renovation (like a couple million dollars) and became a playground that mixes ordinary playgrounds with public art.

On Wednesday at 10 a.m., no one was there. X-man and I had a ball running around exploring. He tackled the toddler park, then the big kid park and then he found his all time favorite thing -- a couple of slides built into a hill that were made of eco-friendly concrete. He went up and down and up and down for over 45 minutes. When he finally got tired of climbing, we headed over to the giant sand pit with tunnels to crawl through and a large wave sculpture for the kids to climb.

Out of the 10 adults that were in the park with their kids, 6 of them were nannies. I'd say this is the thing I noticed most about our stay in California. There's a clear economic divide between what is normal at home and what is normal in a giant, ritzy city. The Nannies all carried crazy large fancy bags and wore designer jeans. They were at least in Converse shoes, where as the mommy that was in tow (who spent the entire time on the cellphone) was in crazy heeled boots.

After the park, we drove over to the San Francisco Zoo. X-man's favorite part was riding the "Little Puffer" steam train. It makes two loops around the track and on the second run, you go through a tunnel and the engineer blows bubbles at the car like in Willy Wonka. We saw gorillas and mandrills and pet/brushed some goats in the Children's Museum. The facilities for the animals were recently updated for the most part. They also had awesome lunch options. And for the first time, when I picked up my side salad and fruit salad with a water, X-man asked to have fruit salad, too. Then he asked for chips -- but he picked pretzels. So I'm feeling pretty proud that he's learning by the food we're modeling.

We drove home around 3 p.m. and X-man fell asleep, which was too bad because there were some awesome views of the ocean, then the city and then the bay. We got home and I put him in the stroller and he slept all the way up to the room for another 2 hours of nap.

That night, MacTroll was supposed to be back at the hotel to release me at 4 p.m. to go out on my own after being a single parent for 3 days. But he didn't get back until 6 p.m. And he brought friends with him. They took X-man out to dinner (3 dads!) and I got to walk around and find that all the stores I wanted to go to were already closed. I did hit one gift store and picked up something for a friend having a baby. But the only thing open to me was the scary mall. And by scary I mean the mall with those spa people who bother you every 10 steps. Where there were no people in any of the stores. Where the sales people attack you and bother you like freaking 3 year olds demanding, "Are we there yet?"

But when I returned to the room at 8 p.m. the boys were still gone. I took a shower and put on my new heels that SuperShanna picked up for me from Nordstrom's and a pair of black capris I bought with Quigs and the new shirt I got with Rogers (pre-shopping rocks). And I went and stood on a street corner (yes, that's funny) and met a friend of mine for drinks. It took a while to find a bar that wasn't overrun with uber loud music, but we did it. I dragged my butt home at 12:30 a.m. It was awesome.

Tomorrow Day 5 and 6 -- the Total Family Curse.

How do you know? -- TMI Warning

2008 is the year of babies around here. Several of my friends, who have kids X-man's age (2) or a year older are due with their second children or have recently given birth. I am elated to welcome the new members of their families.

When MacTroll and I decided to have a baby, it wasn't instinctual... We had been together for 12 years and neither of us was felt strongly about whether we wanted a kid or not until 2004, when MacTroll came home with his first real superhero car. The car, similar to the one Wolverine drove in X-men 2, is a sneaky sportscar. It's sneaky in that it hides the fact that it really has 4 doors and is, therefore, a sedan. 

You're probably wondering 1) how a sports car = baby and 2) how was I obviously not included in this purchase decision concerning thousands of family dollars...

Well, the answer to 1) is in my husband's words, that it's a family car because the backseat is equipped with the Latch system and 2) is that before the purchase was made, MacTroll had just risen in the ranks in the Legion of Superheroes commanding a salary that no longer required joint signings at the bank (and giving me adequate proof and fear as to why after divorce women get 74 percent more poor -- thank you Dr. Troy -- it's the one statistic he gave that stuck in my head for 10 years from his 200-level Sociology class on the Family.).

This was MacTroll's car, purchased with MacTroll's money... and after getting rid of the 1994 Corolla with 180,000 miles on it and ice tea stains on the passenger seat from his days playing Jimmy Olsen for the Booth Newspapers in Michigan (where the only real big pluses were free laundry and working with Jef Mallet, who is now known for his cartoon strip Frazz), who was I to argue? 

I mean, when I spend my miniscule earnings on things like Dana-only trips to Montreal to watch Roy Dupuis movies and eat at Schwartz's, do I want him to say anything about how I spend that money, just because he might have chosen another destination, had he been included in the conversation? No. (And he would never argue with me about being a Quebecaphile because he's an awesome guy who understands me needing to get out of dodge for a while in a place I feel happy.) 

We were due for a new car. At least it wasn't some giant SUV... 

Anyway, when he came home that day with his new toy, he opened the backdoor and showed me the symbols indicating the Latch system so proudly. "Look, car seat stuff!"

It felt like he had heaved a big medicine ball at my gut. "I don't have a kid. I have a dog." I offered. 

"Yeah, I know, but I thought this was the better purchase in case we had a kid in the next five years," MacTroll answered back with a lot of enthusiasm. 

In case you don't know me, I'm a sucker for practicality. Give me a choice between bringing me flowers and bringing me a Target gift card, and I will always go for the gift card. MacTroll is not often a practical kind of man. So when he said this to me, I knew this was him planting the seed in my head. The instant curl of my lip probably told him to stop talking, which he did, bless him. Suddenly, I knew I was going to have to make a decision whether I wanted to go down the road of motherhood or not. 

And the next six months were spent with me making that decision. I spent a lot of time talking to my friend Lori, who was baby crazy, just working up the courage to use the word — "baby." 

When I met that achievement, I worked on talking with other people bringing up the idea of babies. Mostly I chatted to strangers. But I broke down and gave it a testing ground at my friend Patrick's 30th birthday party two months later. His mom, Glenda, picked up on the word immediately. "Are you trying to tell us something, Dana, 'cause you're using the word baby a lot." 

I bowed my head turning bright red... "No."

When I finally decided I'd like to be a mom for sure, we headed into our doctor for the pre-baby discussion. I think we freaked out our doctor a little. Because her first words during the discussion were, "I usually don't get both the potential mom and dad for this kind of consultation. Usually it's just the mom, but I think it's fabulous that you're both here." 

And then she nearly fell off her chair when two people, closing in on 30, asked her how to make a baby. 

After over a decade of doing everything possible NOT to get pregnant, the idea of not using birth control was so foreign it was like our brains just couldn't wrap around the idea of procreation. 

Plus, Joel and I had always been through health classes as teenagers where the eerie music would play in the stereotypical health film as the pregnant girl realized her world had ended because she chose to have sex... with the narrator (who should be shot and laid next to the hanged writer) saying something like: "It took only one irresponsible act for Lindsay to lose her childhood." 

You know... it was one of those films that blames the girl, damns sex as evil, curses babies made from teen pregnancies as "bad" and gives no actual discussion to the health topic of sex and its repercussions, no real information (other than trying to scare you into abstinence) on how to prevent pregnancy nor any discussion about how to raise a baby (like mentioning services to look into), how to find information on adoption (Go Juno) or information on abortion. 

Either way, it didn't stop us from having sex... it just made us the two most responsible birth control friendly people in the world. 

And bless Dr. Jennie and her, "Don't be surprised if it doesn't happen on the first try. It could take months. If it takes longer than a year, come back and we'll see if we can help."

After the encouraging pep talk. We decided to start in June. And damn it if using all that birth control for over a decade wasn't a really good idea. MacTroll, superhero that he is, managed to get the job done in the first round of attempts.

Now we have a 2 year old, and I see the photos of my dear friends' new babies, and I remember what it felt like to smell X-man's cool, clean George-Clooney-esque baby hair. I remember giving him baths in the sink. I remember the cute little clothes and watching him devour a bottle, learn to turn over, eat rice cereal... And they're all good, positive memories. But when I see the pictures, I realize I don't want another baby... I would just want to have X-man, as a baby, all over again. 

I'm in awe of the steps my friends have taken to love and provide for the little ones in their lives. MacTroll and I feel like parenting one is really pushing our limits. 

I guess it's just the way it is. Some people have six kids and rock as parents. Some people are just super dandy without having any. And I think it's awesome nowadays that a growing number of people are able to make such choices. Because apparently the ability to make choices, like family planning, doesn't always hold true for all. 

Does it?