Bored at work

I took some pictures... Sara is working hard... Our demigod, Bad Sushi [pictures coming soon], has been usurped by pink Domo-kun. Note that Domokun now sits on the right hand of the red plastic cup. Thats crazy

Where NSMA T-shirts Go to Die

Every year at Christmas time my advisor gets T-shirts made for everyone in the lab. The shirt always has the lab logo on the front and a picture of someone's data on the back. These T-shirts go back to 1990. As you can imagine, since I have been here for a few years, I have acquired quite a few of these shirts. Because I am sentimental to a fault, I have kept all of them. Even the orange one that looks hideous on me. Well apparently not everyone is so sentimental. The picture of above is of some random person in a cast wearing the NSMA T-shirt from 2004 (the yellow one). I guarantee you that this individual was not in the lab in 2004, and I imagine that the shirt was either purchased at Goodwill or stripped off the back of graduate student that drank too much at the 4th Avenue Street Fair and passed out. The beauty of this picture is that I spotted the shirt from a moving vehicle driving down Campbell and that is actually my husband's data on the back!

These are dogs

...just thought you should know

GAK!!!!

Figure 1

I am currently trying to immerse myself in dissertation revisions and avoid most extraneous distractions (I have limited my facebook exposure to once per day). This time my graduation date of April 17th really needs to stick. If I cannot finish by that date, I will not be defending my PhD this semester. I have 5 of the 9 chapters polished with revisions from most of committee members completely incorporated. I only have major revisions left for Chapter 6. Moreover, I need to add one more background chapter, which is not yet written. It only needs to be about 10 pages, however, and I can probably knock it out in a few days. So why is this taking me so long? Figure 1 shows a representative example of some of the revisions that I need to address. Please note the extensive pencil notes in the margins made by my advisor. EVERY single page of my Chapter 6 looks like this and some are worse. Moreover, there are at least 4 additional analyses that I need to run on these data. Also disheartening is the number of times that my advisor has written "GAK" on various pages of my thesis. Finally, at the end of my Chapter 6 discussion, my advisor so eloquently commented, "I am almost being knocked over by the wind generated from your extensive hand waving". Ugh! Will it ever end?!

My Lovely and Amazing Husband

I originally planned on posting about my surgery but I realized that there is not much to say. I received great care at TMC. The anesthesiologist actually gave me a lidocaine shot before putting the IV in my hand so it would be more comfortable. Dr. Gardner was great, and with the general anesthesia plus the 2 doses of demerol I received in recovery, and the vicodin waiting for me at home, I was never in too much pain. Honestly, the surgery was by far the easiest part of this entire experience both physically and emotionally. Therefore, I decided to write about how amazing my husband has been rather than about yesterday’s surgery.

Losing the baby has been very difficult for both me and Drew. Moreover, Drew has had his own grieving process to get though. Yet he has been so wonderful and supportive this past week, and I could not imagine spending my life with anyone else. When I changed into my heinous hospital gown, Drew told me that even though it was the worst thing I have ever had to wear I still looked beautiful. While he was waiting with me in pre-op, Drew kept trying to distract me with humor and little tricks with his hands so I would not get too anxious and start crying. It was the perfect thing to do. As soon as I was out of surgery he called my mom to let her know that everything was fine (my mom was really nervous about the general anesthesia). After taking me home, he has done everything possible to make me comfortable and look after me. Drew has brought me all my meals in bed, and has made me feel very loved this entire time. I cannot express in writing how lucky I am that we met.

Obviously, this is not how I wanted this pregnancy to end. Now that I am feeling better, however, I can start to think about the silver lining. Most wedding vows contain something along the lines of “for better or worse”, or “in good times and in bad”. I have always known in my heart that this was true for Drew and me. But now I also have the data (yes, I am a scientist and we always like to have the data) proving that my husband will always do everything he can to support and look out for me.

Thank you sweetie, I love so much.

Miscarriage

Yesterday morning Drew and I woke up at 6:15 am to get ready for the sonogram, which was scheduled for 7:45 am. We arrived at St. Joseph’s perinatal diagnostic clinic around 7:40 am and quickly we were put into a room. The nurse squirted some of the gel on my belly and began my sonogram. Drew was in the room with me so he could also get and early view of the baby. Almost immediately the nurse could not get an adequate image of the amniotic sac and she had to switch to an internal sonogram. Gulp. I used to volunteer with All Women’s Health Services in Portland, OR and have assisted with sonograms. I know that at 10 weeks it should be very easy to get a good view of the amniotic sac and fetus from the stomach. After taking several images, the nurse concluded that the amniotic sac looked as if I was only 6 weeks pregnant and there was no fetal pole. Not good. She then asked me if I had regular periods, which I do. Also not good. She told Drew and me that it appeared as if the embryo never developed and told us that the doctor would want to speak with us. At this time it was only 8:00 am and the doctor would not be in until 8:30 or 9:00 am. Therefore, she put us in the room reserved for genetic counseling and she left us alone. I now realize that this was the room reserved for giving people bad news as it had an exit door so couples would not have to walk through the waiting room past all the happy expecting parents after having their hearts broken. Drew and I then proceeded to wait for an hour. I was crying intermittently this entire time and Drew was holding me. At one point Drew got fed up and went to go ask where the doctor was. Why we were not just rescheduled to meet with the doctor so we could leave is beyond me. Drew and I knew exactly what the sonogram meant and having to wait for one hour for a doctor to tell us what we already knew was cruel. Anyway, a little after 9:00 am the doctor finally showed up to tell us that I had lost the baby. At that point I started crying even harder. Apparently, the fetus never developed but the placenta continued to grow and my hCG levels showed normal increases. This resulted in my body responding as if I was having a normal pregnancy. This aspect of what happened I find a particularly cruel act of biology. I got to experience over a month of pregnancy symptoms but not because my body was supporting a developing baby. Eventually, my reproductive organs figured out that there was no fetus and I started spotting. While spotting can be benign, in my case it was actually signaling the beginning of a miscarriage. After the doctor gave us the bad news along with the requisite words of comfort, “my parents had several miscarriages before having 10 children, you are young and will get pregnant again, yadda, yadda, yadda…”, we left through the back door. Actually, even though we had to wait for an obscenely long time, the doctor that told us the bad news was very kind.

Through the whole process Drew has been amazing. This has been very difficult for both of us and Drew has been so supportive and understanding. I could not ask for a better husband.

So what now? I am still having spontaneous outbursts of crying, and tomorrow I have to go for surgery. After that, I am going to try and put this behind me and Drew and I are going to try again. I have been assured by my OBGYN that this is fairly common especially for first pregnancies and no indication of later reproductive success. The good news is that I got pregnant very quickly and it was not an ectopic pregnancy. Honestly, however, right now this is not making me feel any better.

Oh yeah by the way...

I realize that I have not attended to this blog in over a year and a half, and doubt that many people will be reading it. That aside, I have decided to give blogging another shot. I think that it might help me to keep some of worries in check.

Anyway, over the past year and a half I went to Australia, I got married, went to New Zealand for a honeymoon, went to Oregon for a month but spent most of it on the coast, my dogs grew up, Drew graduated with his PhD (yes he lapped me), I wrote a draft of a thesis, and now I am pregnant.

Here are some random pictures from that time. I do not have a lot since I also got a new laptop and most of them are on my other computer.


Happy dogs on the Oregon Coast


Drew is such a cutie.






This is me and Lan at the Tucson beer festival. We got to go for free in exchange for serving Rogue Chocolate stout habinero browny ice cream for 1702. It was awesome!

9 weeks pregnant and counting

Today I am 9 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Only three more weeks until the second trimester and I cannot wait to get through this first trimester. Although I have not thrown up and have only had minor nausea, my skin has been terrible, my breasts have been really sore, and I have been pretty hormonal. This means that I am rapidly cycling between teary, bitchy and elated. Drew is particularly fond of this pregnancy symptom.

On February 6, 2009 Drew and I told Carol and everyone and everyone else in the lab that I was pregnant. It was relief to not be keeping the secret anymore and quite fun to spread the good news. Everyone in Oregon and our families were told weeks ago (around January 12th).

This past week I also found a doctor. For my pregnancy verification exam and my first blood work I went to Associates in Women’s Health. For several reasons this was not an ideal fit for me and my baby to be. First, they only deliver at Tucson Medical Center, and I want to deliver at St. Joseph’s hospital where I can be assured a private room. Additionally, there are 5 different doctors with this group and no guarantee of which one would be handling my delivery. Therefore, I switched to a private practice doctor. Dr. Lynell Gardner is now my doctor. I immediately took to her because I think she is a real foodie. Dr. Gardner spent at least 20 minutes talking to me about food and my pregnancy diet during my first appointment with her. I am really glad I found her because on February 10, 2009 I had some light spotting. Although this is fairly common during the first trimester (20-30% of pregnant women experience this), I was terrified that I might miscarry. I told Drew and he made a sad face that broke my heart. I then immediately called Dr. Gardner’s office and left work with Drew. We went to lunch and I ended up crying in the middle of Chipolte (thank you hormones). Drew then took me to Dr. Gardner’s office for a blood draw so they could test my hCG levels, which is human chorionic gonadotrophin hormone. It helps to build the corpus luteum causing it to secrete progesterone. Anyway, my levels came back the next day and were over 41,000 muL/mL. Normal for week 9 of pregnancy is over 25,700 muL/ml so I was very relieved. This hopefully means that the baby and the placenta are growing normally. Also because of the spotting I was told to adhere to a “light life”, which means no exercise for 2 weeks (I am still running a lot so this is a bit of a bummer), and I was scheduled for an early sonogram. Drew and I are going for the sonogram Monday morning at 7:45 am. I cannot wait to see that everything is ok. I just want to see that fast, little heartbeat!