Month: May 2018

A-holes on airplanes

Leave a comment

My kids were much better behaved on our trip back and we had a much better flight with an extra set of hands (thanks to my husband who flew out just to fly us home). I should mention that the flight ended with my oldest projectile vomiting, which was not, as I assumed at the time, motion sickness, but was actually a horrible GI bug that he is still grappling with and that I am desperately hoping no one else in our home contracts. But that’s a story for another day, because first I’d like to talk about a-holes on airplanes.

I have flown a ton with my kids in the past 3.5 years. I have been fortunate to encounter nothing but gracious people, who have tolerated some tears, tantrums, and other infant/toddler behavior on our flights. The kids are actually great travelers, and I think this is part of the reason we have never encountered animosity on airplanes – they don’t scream/shriek the entire time, they are not rude, and obviously they are incredibly cute and win everyone over (biased mom here). Part of the reason we get a lot of sympathy is also that my husband and I always come equipped to entertain them, and we hustle the entire flight to keep them as calm as possible. We don’t let them run around willy-nilly, we are mindful of how their movements and noises affect surrounding passengers, and we try to have new/engaging/interesting items on hand to pique their interest.

However, we did meet our first disgruntled passenger on this week’s flight. We boarded the airplane first, and barely noticed an overweight, older gentleman board a few minutes later. He was seated two rows in front of us. Because we had boarded so early and the majority of seats were empty/passengers were still getting situated, I let my youngest sit on my oldest, start hugging, and begin to play as I set up our seats (safety harnesses, waters, books, wipes, etc). They were basically hugging and making noises. My youngest was saying things so that my oldest would copy him, and they were having a blast. Cue grumpy old man: “I’m sorry, but that is unacceptable behavior.”

I was taken aback – was this man talking to me? It sure looked like he was staring in my direction, but what could be unacceptable behavior? Well, never fear, he proceeded to explain: “It is unacceptable for you to let them hug and yell and cause a commotion for everyone.” First of all, the cabin wasn’t even 25% full. Second of all, who gets angry at playing toddlers who are literally just sitting in their seats!? We hadn’t even been on the airplane for five minutes! If this guy was already annoyed, he was definitely in for a treat during the 5+ hour haul.

I was honestly speechless. I was also slightly embarrassed (was I an oblivious parent? Had my kids actually been loud/obnoxious and not cute/endearing?) and wanted to stay calm for my kids. I was also worried that he would start cursing in front of the kids or become otherwise belligerent. And I didn’t think there was much point in arguing with someone who would yell at a pregnant lady traveling with 2 toddlers – what were the chances he would honestly empathize? Plus you see all of these viral videos these days of families getting kicked off flights for the smallest things, and I did not want any trouble on this flight. My husband, who was sitting across the aisle from us, had zero of these reservations.

He got into it with this man, telling him not to talk to me like that, asking if he had ever flown with children, and on and on. The grumpy old man yelled something back about common courtesy/being nice and I pretty much zoned out and tried to distract my kids, while simultaneously asking my husband to calm down. It was an ugly scene and I was not in the mood for confrontation.

I felt pretty crappy the rest of the flight. We worked as hard as we usually do to keep the kids calm, but it felt different – like we were somehow acquiescing to his demands. I was grateful that both of them napped and were generally in stellar moods. I also felt very grateful to have my husband there. I don’t know how the scene would have played out if I were solo, except that perhaps more passengers would have come to my immediate defense. A few gave us smiles of solidarity after it happened, told us the grumpy old man passenger was a jerk after the flight landed, and also commended us for having well-behaved kids. We were grateful to those people for their small acts of kindness. And a special thank you to the passengers across the aisle from us who handed me a barf bag when they saw my oldest vomiting and me searching frantically for something to contain it.

And if you find yourself on an airplane with parents who have young kids, try to have some empathy. I get it – you paid for your flight, you’re tired, you want to sleep/read/watch a movie/etc. But guess what? It’s not a private jet. Most (I can’t speak for all) parents are trying their best to keep their kids contained and respectful, but kids aren’t robots. These families have also paid money for their seats – in our case, we purchased four of them – and have the right to talk, walk around within reason when the seatbelt sign is off, and so on. And no matter how little you think you’re relaxing by the kids being in your mere presence, the parents are relaxing 100% less trying to entertain them. Moral of the story is: try not to be an a-hole on airplanes. After all, isn’t that what common courtesy is all about?

Toddler tears

Leave a comment

Tonight is our last night visiting our families, who live on the opposite coast. We fly out here often (and vice versa) so that our children can still be close to their grandparents, even though we live far apart.

I tucked my kids into bed tonight and reminded them that I would wake them up early in the morning (“tomorrow”) to fly back home. My oldest seemed to process this information quickly, but then called me back into the room a minute later. “What does tomorrow mean?”

“Tomorrow will be when you wake up,” I said. His eyes welled up with tears and his lower lip quivered. “But I don’t want to go home!” he said. “I like being at grandma and grandpa’s house. I don’t like our house and I don’t like my school!” For reference, he is 3.5 years old and has never expressed a dislike of our home nor his preschool.

His words broke my heart. The back-story here is that I myself often wonder if we’re doing the right thing living far away from family. I have discussed moving back home countless times with my husband (ad nauseam really) but he’s adamant that we are building a better life for our kids by staying where we are, and in many ways I think he’s right.

I didn’t feel a desire to flock back home until after I had kids. My husband and I both left home at 18. We come from involved and attentive families who sacrificed their own quality of life to provide us with everything we needed, and we subsequently both attended the same Ivy League college. After college we went our separate ways but found ourselves living in the same city (not near our parents) a few years later. 9 years after college, we moved together to the opposite coast because it’s what we wanted to do. We had both flirted with the idea and thought it would be a great time to try it. We ultimately stayed because my husband achieved some career success locally, even though, had I been single, I would have likely left the state. After our first was born, we stayed because we had a house and great jobs, and we have stayed since for similar reasons: it’s comfortable, we have short commutes, we have great careers, we love the area.

I grapple with staying a lot (my husband, who is very rational and pragmatic – as I have mentioned – does not). I often wish we had extra sets of hands to help out with the kids. We are on our own in terms of childcare, with the exception of that which we pay for. I also think the kids would grow to be more well-rounded if they had different caregivers intimately involved in their care. We have a lovely nanny, and she has been around since my first was born, but as much as we trust her, it’s just not the same as family. My closest friends are also here, and I find it so time-consuming to make adult friendships, especially with kids and working full-time. I also think about the fact that our parents are getting older. These are the years they will enjoy with their grandkids – when the grandparents are young enough to spend quality time with them and the grandkids are young enough to love spending this time with them, before they become self-absorbed teenagers. If anything happens to our parents, will I regret not living closer when it mattered the most?

More and more of our friends and acquaintances are moving out of state, for one reason or another. Some days I yearn to be one of them as well – packing up the house, putting it on the market, starting our lives elsewhere. But really I would only move back home, which is funny because I didn’t particularly love growing up here. As I’ve mentioned, my parents were great, but I moved when I was about to start high school, and this put a bit of a damper on everything. Adolescence is tough! I actually disliked my house for the longest time, but now that I’m an adult who has purchased a home in a high cost-of-living area, I can’t help but think: it’s so large! Look at all of this space and land! What a steal!

I am sure my oldest will wake up feeling fine tomorrow morning, but I don’t think my own feelings will be forgotten so quickly. I don’t know what the right answer is, and I don’t want to pressure my husband into making a decision until I am certain it is the right choice. And so I’m stuck in limbo, flying back and forth, feeling not-quite in each place, trying to put a positive spin on the situation for my kids. It reminds me of a few lines I read in the book “This Is How It Always Is” by Laurie Frankel:

“This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decision on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands. Who trusts you to know what’s good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don’t get to see the future. And if you screw up – if with your incomplete contradictory information you make the wrong call – nothing less than your child’s entire future and happiness is at stake. It’s impossible. It’s heartbreaking. It’s maddening. But there’s no alternative.”

Worried and kicking

Leave a comment

It’s been 5 days since I learned about my possible toxoplasmosis infection and I’ve just been a rollercoaster of emotion:

  • doom and gloom: worst case scenario congenital toxoplasmosis situation. How will we adjust to having a severely disabled child? Is this fair to my other children? How will our lives change?
  • denial: this MUST be a false positive. I don’t spend time around cats, I don’t eat meat, I have barely eaten raw fruits and vegetables this pregnancy and never without washing them. Then I think about the one time our cat lady neighbor picked up two packages for us while we were away. This was back when I was very early pregnant, 1-2 mo. What if one of her cats pooped on the packages and then I grabbed them? Is this enough contact to transmit toxoplasmosis? Would my IgG be positive if this were the case?
  • anger: why did my ob check this lab? There seems to be no clear guideline to doing so (for asymptomatic patients without exposure risk). I switched to this ob primarily to have the same person I saw for regular visits deliver my baby instead of a resident (to clarify: not because I didn’t think they’d do a great job, but because I would prefer for residents I work with not to see me in labor. Although, two residents did deliver my second and I can barely remember who they were) but now I’m having second thoughts. Should I have stuck with my original group, who didn’t check for toxo because it’s not standard of care? Now I’m on this wheel of test after test after test (what I’ve been trying to avoid since my first induction for suspected pre-eclampsia) and I’m mad at myself because it’s of my own doing. I also wish she had a clear algorithm in mind. If she sends off a test, then she should have a clear plan as to what to do if it’s positive or negative. Yet, I know that this is not always true in medicine, and this is how we learn.

My husband is a level-headed, pragmatic individual. He is not worried at all. He says that worrying won’t change the situation. There is literally nothing I can add to the situation by worrying, and I need to relax and wait to see what the doctors say next week. I have an ultrasound scheduled and will follow up with high-risk ob the day after (by phone at least). I wish I could be reasonable like him and not worry, but I have a tough time doing so. I worry about the need for invasive testing or treatment which could be dangerous to the baby. I worry about being in a perpetual state of worry (is this the ultimate sign of anxiety or what?) during this pregnancy. I worry that the baby will need unnecessary testing when he’s born. And I think about what it would be like to have a baby with congenital toxoplasmosis – how different from my prior newborns. How will I handle that on top of having a newborn and 2 toddlers?

In the past few days, the baby has started to kick more. He was moving early on this time around, but his movements have been much more intense and exaggerated. I like to think that he’s telling me not to worry, to calm down, that he’s alright. I hope this is true. Only 3 more days until I have my ultrasound. I pray that everything is normal.

Bad news

Leave a comment

This month has been hectic. It started with a lovely get-away (without kids!) for my husband and I. It was lovely. We were away for a week and were able to sleep 10-12 hours per day, finish both our conversations and our meals, lounge leisurely by the pool (under an umbrella, of course), walk along the beach, read, and simply be.

As always, I returned home with a desire to incorporate some of that into my daily life: taking a few minutes per day to just be together, reading more for fun, enjoying leisurely meals, exercising. Except we came home to a 1 year old and a 3 year old and two full-time jobs so none of the above happened.

It’s also a busy time. I’ve been taking advantage of my second-trimester energy to complete a few projects, including submitting plans for a minor home renovation. I’ve also had a pesky cough since our time away and though it would go away but it didn’t, and the coughing would often rob me of my energy and cause me to feel even more tired than usual. To top things off, my oldest came down with hand foot mouth disease (HFMD) and was home the entire week prior to a flight I was taking solo with both kids. He was in pain and cranky the entire week (apologies to all of the moms I counseled on HFMD by saying it was merely viral and would blow over) and, the worst part of all was that he wouldn’t sleep through the night! So the first few nights my husband and I stayed up with him. And then my youngest got a fever (but fortunately did not erupt into HFMD) and then HE wouldn’t sleep through the night.

So I set off with both kids in recovery ALONE on a 6 hour flight and it was by far the worst flight we’ve ever had. My kids have traveled a lot because even though we don’t live close to family, I think it’s so important for them to spend time with them. They are usually shockingly well-behaved. I come prepared, keep them entertained, and they generally keep their crying and tantrums to a minimum. But last week was a different story. Both kids were on the mend, I felt like crap from a combination of not sleeping as well as fighting off this cough (oh and being pregnant), and they wouldn’t nap! So we kept things pretty together until the last 30-45 minutes. And then when the plane landed, all hell broke loose. Both kids wanted to be carried but I only had two hands and had to carry the carry-on bags (we only had travel backpacks with us but it was a lot to juggle!). Then my oldest started throwing a tantrum about everything – he didn’t want to let me into the aisle to organize our bags, he didn’t want his brother to sit by the window, and on and on and on. Meanwhile, I’m frantically trying to organize everything while his little monkey of a brother is climbing over the seats. My oldest won’t move from his spot so I tell him “I’m going to pick you up and sit you down here so that I can grab everything” and do just that. He loses his **** and starts yelling “Mommy you HURT ME!”. Meanwhile, I’m dying.  As calmly as possible, I tell him it’s time to get off of the plane. A very nice lady helps with one of our bags, I carry my youngest off the plane, and my oldest begrudgingly drags his bag and follows behind, complaining all the way.

At the gate, I have to find and unfold our stroller, which was a waste of effort because neither kid will sit in it (but at least I can pile some bags on it). The oldest is crying and blocking people as they walk off of the plane while the youngest just wants to be held. I hightail it out of there with the oldest hitting me on my backpack and throwing the world’s greatest tantrum. We are the last people off the plane and the pilots are begrudgingly walking behind us because (I learned on another trip) they can’t leave anyone behind when they leave the plane. Awesome. And then, to top it all off, I have to walk approximately 20 minutes with one kid in my arms and one kid whining the whole way because we have landed at a huge airport, at possibly the furthest airline!

It was a total disaster. I saw my parents at the exit, handed the kids off to them, and then walked off to baggage claim to burst into tears. I could tell the security guard knew I was going to lose it because he let my parents follow me to the baggage claim to help out with the bags.

Until yesterday, I thought that was the worst thing that had happened. Then, my ob called me. Before I left, I had a few third trimester labs drawn. Apparently, one of those labs was toxoplasmosis. I had already had this checked in January (at 7 weeks) and both IgM and IgG were negative. For some reason, my ob rechecked it. She admitted that this was controversial – that many people don’t recommend rechecking due to low likelihood of infection in our area and false positives. But then she told me that I had a new positive (IgM, with IgG still negative). She wasn’t sure what to make of it. She had spoken to the high-risk obstetrics group at my hospital and they would follow up with me and likely have me return for an ultrasound, as well as labs, maybe an antibiotic, etc. She told me not to freak out so I promptly did just that – freaked out.

Toxoplasmosis!? That’s one of the terrible infections we learn about in medical school that can cause a slew of problems in newborns. WTF!? But I don’t own any cats…and I’m a vegetarian! I couldn’t believe it. I did what I always tell my patients not to do – turned to Dr. Google, and PubMed, and every person I know who is an obstetrician or infectious disease expert. I received a slew of responses: it’s probably nothing/a false positive, you definitely should not ignore this, you need serial ultrasound monitoring, they need to test the baby, there’s nothing you can do anyway because you’re 24 weeks along.

I’m also a bit annoyed at my ob. Why did she check it if it’s controversial? Her exact words were “I’ll probably change my practice after this”. And I am not entirely sure she knows exactly what to do at this time. She referred me to the high-risk ob, and that person called me, but I’m traveling and can’t be seen tomorrow, and she’s going to be out of town next week. The ID expert I spoke with told me to get labs ASAP, but the ob told me it wasn’t time-sensitive. Her exactly words were “I’m going to be blunt with you because you’re a doctor: if this is a true infection, there’s not much you can do at 24 weeks”. But shouldn’t it matter if it’s a true infection?

So I’m just waiting here, anticipating the worst. And it’s made me realize that I’m done having kids. I always thought I wanted a fourth, but pregnancy is too tenuous and stressful. I think about the experiences I’ve had with my kids – my pre-eclampsia scare with my first and him being in the NICU after birth (the briefest NICU stay ever, but seemed like the longest to me), my positive first-trimester screen with my second and having to see genetics for additional screening to rule out a chromosomal abnormality, and now this with my third. I pray that he will be healthy. That this is either a huge misunderstanding (false positive) or that he does not catch this infection. I’ll have an ultrasound in one week and hopefully will have some additional information at that time – and hopefully it’s all good news.