New Baby for a New Year

The Sunday after Thanksgiving Rob and I found out that we are expecting our second child.  Unlike our first, this one was actually planned.  We might want up to 3 kids and at the very least didn't want a huge age gap between the first and second.  We waited until Christmas and revealed it to his immediate family in a special way - we had his picture taken in a Big Brother shirt framed and gave everyone one as gifts.  They all opened them at the same time and it was really neat to watch their faces to see who would notice it first and then to see everyone else realize it. 

We're due July 29th and this pregnancy has been the polar opposite to when I was pregnant with Hayden.  With Hayden I had maybe a week and a half of nausea, with Babe-X (as we've nicknamed this one) I've been nauseous at some point almost every day and so many things MAKE me nauseous (bleach water, batter?!?!, eggs that aren't fully cooked (over easy) or sometimes just eggs no matter how they're cooked, etc).  Oh and the cravings... with Hayden I just wanted steamed veggies for the first trimester I could eat a bowl of steamed spinach for dinner and be happy as a clam.  This time around I'm craving sweets - chocolate especially, spicy food (jalapeno chips anyone?), and potatoes. 

Also, it's almost six o'clock in the evening and I've only had a piece of toast and a bowl of pasta w/ a couple meatballs to eat all day and I'm am absolutely stuffed.  With Hayden I could at least eat like a normal adult the first trimester, like a ravenous wolf the second, and by the third I was so huge that while I was hungry I had to break up my meals into fist sized portions and eat them throughout the day.  Babe-X has cut straight to the chase and has me starving but only able to eat small bits at a time.  It took me two sittings to eat my normal sized bowl of pasta.

All things considered though, the baby seems to be happy and healthy and progressing normally which is the most important thing.  I completely changed my obgyn care from the last pregnancy and could not be happier about my new doctor.  She is a perfect fit for me and I'm really looking forward to this journey having her as my doc. 

Here's a snapshot of our first u/s of Babe-X... we'll refer to this as her hamster phase in the future I'm sure.

HIV and Disclosure Part 1

I was diagnosed with HIV when I was 2 1/2.  I pretty much knew about my status from my first memory where I wasn't allowed to play in the playground with other kids.  My dad re-confirmed it when I was 5 and asked about why I had to take medicine.  I didn't understand exactly what HIV was or what it meant, but I knew that I had it, that people were afraid of it and that I had to deal with it forever (which at the time I was 5 didn't seem very long as I didn't have a long life expectancy). 

A few people knew about my status: family, close family friends, and teachers.  When I was younger every time the school got a new nurse she'd send me home on suspicion of having the mumps as I had chronic swollen lymph nodes.  A few times in my childhood one of my childhood friends - equally naive about HIV - would discover my status and the rumors would start up again but since it was true I guess they weren't exactly rumors.  As I got older and started dating, I disclosed to my partners and close friends too.

It wasn't until I was 20 that I decided to be completely public and open about my status.  One of my friends told me that I should stop being ashamed of it, it wasn't something I actively had a hand in and I couldn't change my status.  I thought back to all the years I had been afraid to tell just because I was afraid of being an outcast or rejected by my peers.  Since I "came out" about my status, I've met a lot of other people with HIV.  All of us have different stories, all of us have different opinions.  I've met a lot of supportive people, and had the opportunity to educate and change others perceptions.  I have had very few negative experiences, and certainly not the widespread condemnation I was fearing.

Every one is different though.  I don't pretend to know everyone's situation or set of circumstances.  Disclosure is no small task.  You're putting yourself out there to be judged and discriminated against.  Often times you're someone's first experience dealing with HIV and you have to be prepared to handle fear and educate.  It's a scary business.  I know HIV positive people that have chosen not to date anyone who isn't also HIV positive because they don't want to risk rejection, have to deal with disclosing to someone that doesn't understand, or risk infecting someone accidentally.  I know some that have just stopped dating.  Others feel that if someone doesn't ask about their status they're not going to disclose - some use a condom every time others don't.  Some feel that since their virus is controlled by medication and their viral load (measures how much virus is present in the body down to 40 copies / mL) is undetectable there is no significant risk of infection referring to the Swiss Study ("Swiss experts say individuals with undetectable viral load and no STI cannot transmit HIV during sex")

Personally for me I don't believe in non-consensual sex in any form.  I feel that if you engage in sexual activity with someone and you know you have something that is potentially transmittable you need to have that conversation with your partner.  As misguided as they may be, they may choose not to have sex with someone they know to be infected because they're afraid.  That is their prerogative.  They may have been sleeping their way unprotected around the club with anyone and everyone without using protection, without having "the talk" but that still doesn't make it okay to have sex without disclosing in my book.  That is my opinion though, not everyone shares it but a lot do. 

Regardless, no matter how much you love a person - if you choose to take that step and decide to have unprotected sex you should go and have a health screening together.  Not only for HIV but there's also HPV, herpes, hepatitis A, B, C, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and crabs / body lice.  If someone tests positive for any of those things it's always better to know.  You can take steps to keep the uninfected partner safe and get treatment to stay healthier. 

New Recommendation by American Academy of Pediatrics - sexually active teens should be screened for HIV

Today I came across the following article my friend linked to on facebook:

Group calls for HIV screening of teens who have sex

Basically it talks about the new policy statement released Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics where in they recommend that all sexually active adolescents should be screened for HIV.

The statistic that half of all new infections in the US occur in individuals between 13 and 24 has been around for a long time.  It's about time that the AAP made this recommendation.  In the world we live in, in relation to HIV, being young, naive and fearless is a risk factor gay or not.  How many of us made stupid decisions when we were younger?  How many of us have ever had sex without a condom without a recent STD/STI screening from our partner?  How many of us have failed to even ask about a partners sexual history as it relates to being tested?  Someone somewhere answered yes to at least one of those questions and it doesn't make them a bad person.  It just makes them part of the majority.  A lot of those mistakes happened when we were under 24, a lot of them still happen when we're older.  Some of those mistakes are made because we don't have the confidence, the dialogue and the tools to have those discussions.  Add an undiagnosed HIV+ individual to the mix and it is easy to see how that statistic is possible.

Coming out publicly about my HIV status when I was 20 and working with organizations that deal with HIV positive individuals has allowed me to meet and talk with HIV positive people from a variety of different backgrounds and opinions.  I need more than two hands to count how many people, like myself had HIV as a virgin or as a young adult.  Some of those people had parents that chose not to tell them they were HIV+ until they were 16 and explained their medicine away as allergy meds.  I've met a couple of people that just happened to have an HIV test as part of an extra credit assignment for class and one as part of being supportive to a friend who were shocked to find out they had HIV when they never had sex.  In one case it led to a person's mother getting tested and finding out she was HIV+ as well.  By no means am I trying to scare people, these cases are few and far between.  I am just aware of their stories because they reached out to me because we share a virus.  Eventually these people had sex or are going to have sex.  In these cases they became aware of their diagnosis and are able to make informed decisions.  In too many cases people remain naive to their HIV+ status.

This recommendation is a step in the right direction, and I hope that health professionals and parents take it to heart and make it a routine part of an annual checkup.

I welcome any and all thoughts related to this issue :)

Tonsillectomy fall-out... Rated G for GROSS

This blog is a very small part of a master plan.  Its other purpose is to remind me to always be thankful especially for the little things and try to find a silver lining in every dark cloud.

About three years ago when I was renting a room from a lovely Husband and Wife, I started too feel like there was something stuck in my throat or behind my tonsil.  There have been plenty of times that I've gone to the doctor with some weird thing only to be told that it's just something weird, and there's not much they can do about it.  My first reaction now is to try and wait out whatever problem I'm having.  If it doesn't go away in 3 days or if the symptoms are extreme and severe or worsen then I'll go to the doctor.

It was the third night and I hadn't been able to dislodge or see what I thought was a piece of food in my throat and it was getting increasingly irritated.  I was complaining about this at the dinner table one night when the husband, who is a fantastic doctor himself offered to look at it for me.  He got out a pen light said "Hrm... interesting" and explained that I didn't have anything stuck in my throat but rather a nubbin or a horn on my tonsil.  He drew a picture for me and said that I could go have it looked at but it was probably a virus or something and would go away on its own.

I decided to be safe and went to my doctor the next day.  My doctor only mirrored what my roommate had said, took a culture and gave me a script to see if it would go away.  It did, life was great and went on.  Since then, that "nubbin" has been making an appearance at an increasing rate.  Finally after dealing with it no less than six times this year, I went to my doctor for an ENT referral.

Interestingly my ENT has a very similar disposition to my old roommate.  He was straight forward and said that it was just a little extra piece of lymphatic tissue (Oh!  How nice!  At 24 my body just decided to grow a little something extra!) and if I wanted to do something about it, I could have my tonsils removed.  He was very clear that it would not be a pleasant experience and that I would curse his name after.  Even with that, I felt as though someone were handing me the opportunity of a lifetime.  The thought of not waking up to surprise tonsillitis was absolute heaven.

Now almost two months after the surgery I'm fully healed and back to "normal".  During my recovery period (about 3 weeks total) I managed to stay hydrated so I never had much of a fever post op, but the pain was pretty intense.  Within a couple of days after the surgery I was able to eat hot dogs, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and pasta along with the standard jello and popsicles.  I thought I was home free until about the fifth day when my tonsil pockets found new and exciting ways to hurt.

I didn't know it at the time, but that pain signified the beginning of the end of my healing process.  While I had been using pain meds sparingly up to that point, I started using them as often as prescribed and if I was even a half hour late the pain intensified to unbearable levels.  Also during this time no matter how many times I brushed my teeth or rinsed my mouth out with a salt water gargle I had the most hideous breath imaginable.  To say I had dragon breath would be putting it lightly.  It smelled as though something had crawled inside my throat, died and was decomposing.

A couple of days after the smell started I was laying down with an ice collar and suddenly coughed.  Lo and behold out came the "scab" from my surgery that was the sure source of the offending odor.  After that ordeal my throat felt so much better.  It was a little scratchy, and my muscles back there hurt and were tight but that all resolved in a matter of a week. 

After everything, I am still so very glad I made the decision to have my tonsils out.  It sucks to do as an adult but just a few weeks of pain means a lifetime free from my tonsils whim.

Mr. Independent

Hayden is just 2 months shy of his first birthday.  Looking back, I cannot believe it has gone so quickly, and yet there are times I feel every day of those 10 months and wonder how we made it.  As far as babies go, Hayden has been pretty good to us.

The first month was a little rough.  We had an alarmist nurse in the hospital who was so afraid he was spitting up all of his medicine (he was on AZT for the first 6 weeks as a prophylactic measure) and having them tell us to only give Hayden a half ounce of food at a time and then only one-two times a day.... sooooo for the first day and a half we were basically starving him.  Rob stayed up with him one night and fed him as much as he'd eat.  Hayden pretty much puked most of it back up but he also puked up the mucus in his stomach that was making him sick to begin with.

Hayden did great for a few days, but after we got him home and started giving him bottles, he started spitting up a lot again.  This went on for about two weeks until I realized that we were using the nipples that came with our relatively cheap bottles and he was getting too much at once.  We got slower rate nipples, and again he was fine. As soon as we threw out the baby books and trusted our instinct and a little trial and error things were golden.  

He started sleeping through the night at 2 months (6 hrs at first and now he sleeps 9-11 hrs at night). 
I was away on a business trip one weekend when Hayden was around 4 1/2 months and Rob stopped giving Hayden a pacifier to soothe his crying.  By the end of the weekend Hayden didn't even want a pacifier.  We still keep them in his toy baskets so he has access to them.  He'll sometimes pull one out and put it in his mouth (usually upside down or hanging out the side of his mouth) but it's more of a teething toy now, than a pacifier. 

He's a great kid, but so very busy.  He is very curious about everything around him and acts like he doesn't have time to sit in one place when there are so many places to go and explore.  Cuddling is almost completely out of the question.  He's always glad to see you after a nap though!

Last month he took his first couple of steps.  Now, he'll take Rob and I on walks through out the house.  He doesn't like to hold both of your hands though, he only wants to hold one.  Sometimes he'd rather not hold any and will shake you off so he can go walk on his own.  

We're so proud of our little guy and try to encourage him every step of the way.  Rob and I really wanted to raise a child that was independent and wasn't afraid to adventure, but I never thought that it'd start so soon!

Why "A Lifetime of Thanks"

"We are the sum total of all of our experiences"

I'm not sure who said it first.  It is a quote that has been reshaped and said by many, and yet it is one that I find resonates so true to my own life.  I could tell you a tale of woe to pluck your heartstrings and gain your sympathy or God forbid, pity.  I've faced enough adversity and certainly my share of personal tragedies for you to feel sorry for me.

If I were to do that though, it would certainly be a disservice to those people that have helped me along the way.  For even though I survived a childhood some would call a hot mess, I did survive and I have come so far from that darkness to stand where I am today.  As a child I knew there were people around me that were good, I was thankful for the kindnesses they showed me.

However, as we grow older one of our many rewards of age is perspective.  Looking back, I see now that were it not for the efforts put forth by so many people, I would not be sitting here, enjoying my life and writing this today. 

This book is about more than just the journeys my life has taken me on.  It is about thanking the people that have helped me along the way.  It is about the words that were left unsaid.  Thank you.

Waste not, want not...

About 2-3 times a month I'll cook a roast chicken.  We buy a two pack of little fryers at Costco and the birds are all natural, hormone free, vegetarian diet only, free range birds.  Really, for the price they can't be beat.  I will usually make the chicken for a Friday night dinner.  It's something a little fancy to celebrate the end of Rob's work week and there's always plenty of left overs to snack on over the weekend.  Even after a weekend of snacking, there's still tons of chicken left to pick from the carcass and not to mention all of the other things we keep at first but usually end up throwing away - skin, wings, insides etc.

Even though he's been gone for over 2 years now, every time I throw chicken away a little part of me thinks about my dad lecturing me about not wasting food because there are starving kids in Ethiopia.  That is why last weekend when planning out our dinners for the week, I decided to go ahead and make chicken soup our Monday night dinner.

I've made chicken soup before but never have I boiled down parts and skin to make my own broth.  I've always made my broth using better than bullion.  (Another homage to my dad since he used chicken base to start his soups when I was growing up.)

I threw the chicken carcass, left over carved meat, and all the other chicken scraps into the pot and let it boil for about 3 hours.  After I decided my broth tasted as "chickeny" as it was going to get I poured it into another pot through a strainer.  I let the strained chicken sit and cool off before I picked the carcass clean and cut up the large pieces of meat.  I returned the broth to the stove and added some more water.  The broth tasted a little lighter than I would have liked so I added a touch of chicken base.  I only used about a teaspoon compared to the many tablespoons I usually use when making soup.  I added the rest of my ingredients to the soup and let it all cook together for another hour. 

It turned out pretty well.  I think my dad would be proud :)  I served it with some home made bread and butter and we had enough left over to freeze about a gallon!