A Little Coffee Date to Catch Up!

Hi Friends! Long time, no talk!

I’m sorry that things have been so quiet over here in my little corner of the internet, but honestly, life has been insane, and I had to prioritize to survive. A lot has been going on in the world the last few weeks, but also in my own life, so I thought a little virtual “coffee date” would be the perfect way to catch up!

COVID-19

You would have to be completely isolated from any and all civilization to not recognize the name COVID-19, and I daresay 100% of us are currently affected in some way. I want to lead with this: stay home. This virus is dangerous, deadly, and we do not have the available testing (currently) to truly understand the numbers infected and therefore, contagious. I’m a nurse, and not being at work right now is KILLING me, but in reality, it has a very real possibility of killing my friends and coworkers, no hyperbole necessary. We lack the appropriate protective equipment to care for those infected, so by far, the best thing that you can do is STAY HOME and do your part to flatten the curve and limit the spread.

Ok now that we got that PSA out of the way…

Quarantine/Social Distancing

Like I said, I’m a nurse, and it’s no secret that my husband is Active Duty in the Army, which technically classifies us both as essential personnel. Ironically, we are both currently at home for at least the next 2ish weeks. Alex is teleworking and I am, for my safety and for unborn baby boy’s safety, not working with patients at the moment. We are really trying to figure out how to be at home with Jackson every day and still be functioning, productive adults. Please don’t think I am oblivious to my privilege- we will continue to get a paycheck from Alex’s job, I am able to have a job that prioritizes the health of my unborn child during a global health pandemic and let’s me stay home with my toddler for an undetermined amount of time without laying me off, and a daycare that is not only holding Jack’s spot, but not charging us while I choose to keep him home.

I’m a big believer in feeling ALL the feelings (my 5 years of intensive therapy probably contribute) and I’m feeling ALL the feelings right now. My anxiety is heightened just at baseline, to the point I even tried going up on my Zoloft at the suggestion of my midwife, but the side effects outweighed any benefit, so I went back to my normal dose and added something as needed for when my anxiety is really inhibiting my ability to sleep. I feel grateful to have this time with Jack, particularly 1:1 before little brother joins us late this summer, but I also know that he is missing the structure of his days at daycare and his little friends. Alex and I are also struggling to figure out how to both get things done while caring for a full-on into everything toddler tornado. We are going to sit down and hammer out a loose schedule- time for me to work uninterrupted, time for him to work, family time, and then from that a routine for jack will kind of just develop. I know the basic structure of his days at school, so we are going to do our best to follow that so that when he goes back, the transition isn’t too jarring. I will say, we sleep trained Jack around 5 months old after our Disney trip, and we’ve kept the good sleep habits we started with him them. He still craves 2 naps a day at home, and daycare just does one nap, so I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle that. The good news is I have time to figure that out- but when we tried one nap this week, phew LORDT that child didn’t last 30 minutes past normal morning nap time without laying on the floor sucking his thumb, so we scraped the one nap a day plan for now. I will happily share my schedule as we figure out what that looks like- also, stepping back onto my soapbox for a moment, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE A SCHEDULE. If you are just surviving right now, that is more than enough. Promise.

Work

As I alluded to above, I’m currently not working. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I didn’t go back to the emergency department after having Jackson. I worked a few shifts, a few really HARD shifts, emotionally mentally physically, and when I was no longer on the schedule, I just didn’t sign up for more shifts. I miss the chaos and the unpredictability, but I am LOVING primary care pediatrics, which is the perfect transition for me, since I have accepted a NP position in the same pediatric clinic. I LOVE the team that I work with, and I am learning so much. After the chaos and heartache of seeing people on the worst days of their lives in the ED, I am loving getting to see all my tiny well babies and watch them grow and thrive and see them on some of the best days instead of the worst.

It’s really hard for me to not be physically at work right now. I WANT to be there, I miss my patients, but I know that for my own health and baby’s, home is the best place I can be right now. A hard pill to swallow, but I know that I will be back with my littlest patients soon as their NP and I am INCREDIBLY excited for that.

Grad School

Speaking of being a NP, I graduate in 32 days (but who is counting!). I’m in my final stretch of finishing my assignments and honestly, if I put my nose to the grindstone I probably could finish my assignments this week, but I’ll be realistic and say I’ll finish in the next 2 weeks. COVID has shut down testing centers, but I can at least register for boards so that as soon as testing centers reopen, I am ready to become board certified! I’ll be honest, my motivation is truly at an all-time low. I am just so ready to be done, and being home with my sweet toddler is making it very hard to sit down and focus when I just want to snuggle and play with him all the time!

Family

This duty station is the closest we have been to family for a prolonged period of time, and looking down the barrel of what the Army has planned for our future, this is the closest we will be til my kids are well into elementary school. It’s been a whirlwind few years, so we are trying to be intentional with the time that we know we have here, and make the most of it. We were supposed to go home to Williamsburg for Easter for a nice long weekend, but clearly those plans have been cancelled. We also planned a family vacation to Kure Beach for 9 whole blissful days with our pups at the end of May, and TBD on whether or not those plans are cancelled. Since I’m having a summer baby, that is kind of our only window to have a vacation as a family, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed at the prospect of not only not getting to see my family (who is high risk with COVID so staying away is the right thing) but having to postpone/cancel my sprinkle and maybe even cancel our vacation. First world problems, but they make my heart ache nonetheless. This time in the world is so unpredictable, and I have been consistently dropping the ball on things for the last year (I could also call is prioritizing the things necessary for survival haha) but the list currently includes not sending Christmas gifts (yes its late march), not yet mailing our family valentines (since we missed the boat on Christmas cards), and having nothing planned for birthday gifts for the foreseeable future. Oh well. I’m hoping that everyone can just give me some grace.

Marriage

Marriage is still awesome. Like I’ve said, this whole 24/7 togetherness thing is a TRIP but I do think we will still be married at the end of this pandemic LOL. We are two independent people so trying to find the balance of being at home together and both getting our respective work done is a challenge, but I do love that we are finding our rhythm and co-parenting our Squeaks together. This is the most Jack has seen his Daddy in his life, and I can tell that their relationship is really growing because of it. He actually has reached for Daddy at bedtime a few nights for those last few snuggles before laying him down which has NEVER before happened in his 14 months of life. The biggest stressor for us right now is finances- we live comfortably on Alex’s salary but all of our debt payoff income and “fun money” for things like vacation or new floors downstairs or the new car fund all come from my income, which doesn’t exist when I’m not at work. It feels like a weird purgatory where I KNOW I have a very financially lucrative job on the other side of this, but when we will get to that other side- when will testing centers reopen so I can take boards, when will my licensure come through with everything shut down, when will I be ok pregnant-asthmatic wise to actually go back to seeing patients, what will my schedule be like? Just so many questions right now that don’t have answers.

Me

As I alluded to above, my baseline anxiety is high. I couldn’t tolerate a higher dose of Zoloft so we added in a medication for when I’m really really anxious and can’t manage, but taking it gives me anxiety so yeah, lose-lose there. This whole pandemic feels both inevitable and surreal- it feels inevitable we will get it, but also since we don’t have it and aren’t sick, the world seems relatively normal when I look outside the window. I think I need to spend less time scrolling- it increases my anxiety and wastes this precious time I have at home with my family. Also, in true Hannah fashion, I’m making some lists of things I’d like to get done while I’m home around the house, like Baby’s nursery and a good deep clean and powerwashing the driveway. The list is ever-evolving but as Alex mentioned, he’s holding the list hostage until I finish my final grad school assignments, which is fair, since I am at my baseline, a procrastinator.

In terms of the pregnancy, I am having some weird anemias. With Jackson (which I will someday share his birth story I’m just not ready yet) my hemoglobin dropped suddenly without explanation at the end of my pregnancy and I was symptomatic, but wrote it off as normal end of pregnancy complaints until I went into labor and I *KNEW* something was wrong. Basically, your hemoglobin and hematocrit are two measures that tell us how your blood volume is doing, specifically if you have enough red blood cells to effectively carry oxygen in your blood stream. I struggled with anemias in middle school when I started my period, and taking birth control pills for most of my teen life into adulthood managed my bleeding and corrected my anemia. Since I’m a data person, I can look back on my lab work from my early pregnancy appointments with Jack and see that my levels are fine, just maybe trending on the low end of normal. At 36 weeks, my hgb was 11.6 (normal). When I went into labor, my hgb had dropped to 9.2 without any bleeding, and then was 7.0 after delivery. I declined a blood transfusion (why, I don’t know, I really should have accepted) and honestly felt like complete shit. I was so dizzy and lightheaded, exhausted, and out of breath with simple activity. I think, in hindsight, this contributed to my PPD/PPA, but I digress. Fast forward to march at my PP appointment, I was 10.8. I was trying to get sources of heme and non heme iron in my diet because I couldn’t tolerate iron pills (read: I could never poop if I took them. Sorry if that’s TMI, but I feel like we don’t tell women/people how constipating iron supplements are and omg it was traumatic). I wrote off my continuing fatigue as motherhood and honestly kind of forgot about it. In October when I went to my PCP appointment- remember the PA who called me obese? Yeah, her- my labs showed an OK hgb of 11.8, but my specific red blood cell values indicated an iron-deficiency anemia. I switched to a prenatal with iron in it and then surprise- pregnant with baby #2 in November. My lab work in December when I was around 8 weeks showed really worsening anemia- my hgb was ok at 12.4, but all of my specific red blood cells values were terrible, and SIGNIFICANTLY worse than what they were at the same point in my pregnancy with Jackson. We drew some specific labs (and sent me right down the rabbit hole of OMG I’m a carrier of thalassemia and so is Alex and we had no idea and now this baby is going to have a severe form of alpha thalassemia and develop hydrops fetalis and pass in the womb….I know, I went to a DARK place) to check my ferritin (iron) levels and some other indicators that would tell us kind of where we are in terms of my health and baby’s.

The good (?) news is that my iron is really low, which rules out a lot of the scary/incompatible with life stuff, and the very very very good news is that I had my anatomy scan on Monday and baby BOY is perfect, and healthy, and measuring literally on track to the day (since one of the concerns is that baby won’t get enough iron/nutrients from me to grow and develop properly in my womb since my own body doesn’t have enough). The not so great news is that my iron is really low and now my hgb is dropping, and I’ve already failed oral treatment. I’ve tried the pills and even with things to help me go, my GI tract just cannot handle it, and the liquid (floradix) makes me vomit. We’re switching to cast iron for cooking, I’m going to try some liquid chlorophyll to see if that helps, and I’m even contemplating trying some liver (I know, I gag thinking about it, but it’s really effective as long as I don’t barf it up haha). I’m going to be referred to a hematologist because it’s time for some iron/ferritin infusions and maybe even a blood transfusion prior to delivery depending on how my labs continue to look. I officially am too high risk for a home birth, which is disappointing, because I liked having that in my back pocket with the whole global health pandemic going on, but I also have the burden of knowledge and I know that I’m not a good candidate based on my labs. The other concern is that the hospital I currently plan on delivering at is not really best suited to handle an emergency in labor for me or baby, and doesn’t have in house hematology, so in the next 8 weeks or so we will be having the discussions about whether or not to transfer my care to UNC in Raleigh. This will mean about an hour in the car in labor, which I think is my biggest fear, but I am willing to do literally whatever it takes for a healthy baby (and healthy me).

I know that was a lot of information, but I’ve fielded a lot of questions about it, so I figured I would just put it all out there. I obviously professionally have some knowledge about this, which is also a curse, because I know the bad outcomes, the “unicorns”, as well as I know the probably, likely outcomes, the “horses”. I’m just trying to rest in the fact that God chose ME to be this little boy’s mama and He already has a plan for his life and his delivery, even if I don’t know it yet. That does, somehow, give me some peace.

On a much lighter note, I have a posterior placenta this time, which means my placenta is on the back of my uterus vs an anterior placenta which is what I had with Jack. This means that when I felt Jack move, it was like being kicked through a mattress because he his movements were muffled by the cushion of my placenta. With this baby, his placenta is along the back of my uterus, so his movements are so STRONG oh my gosh. Even sitting here right now writing this, I can feel him wriggling in there, which just gives me such reassurance that he is fine (unless I roll onto my stomach in my sleep, then he hits me in the bladder like MOVE LADY you are squishing me!).

I know I was really wordy, but it’s been a few months and I had a lot to catch y’all up on! Now that grad school is wrapping up, I have some fun content planned to share. I’ve got some easy recipes that you already have all the ingredients for in your pantry/freezer, some of my best cleaning tips and tricks, and some fun ways to stay busy and involved while social distancing/isolating. I hope you loved catching up and I’m so glad you’re here!!

XO,

Han