Mrs Affable: I’m pregnant again.
Me: Oh fantastic
Mrs. Affable: But as you said to me on this very spot, that’s not the news.
We share a gynaecologist and Mrs. Affable tells me that she, the
gynaecologist, suspects all this twin pregnancy business is an Irish
thing. I’m gobsmacked, one in eighty my foot. And NO, it’s
not an IVF pregnancy.
on 14 November 2005 at 11:22
Sweetie(s) given
on 14 November 2005 at 11:28
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on 14 November 2005 at 12:40
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on 14 November 2005 at 13:02
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on 14 November 2005 at 13:44
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Friar Tuck
on 14 November 2005 at 16:53
on 15 November 2005 at 10:19
Oh be very afraid GPM, Pog…
Well yes, Norah, I’ve already begun to dispense gratuitous advice.
FT well it’s only a start.
Kristin, it could be me, maybe you should read this blog with gloves on.
Sweetie(s) given
on 15 November 2005 at 10:45
Sweetie(s) given
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https://www.belgianwaffle.net/2005/11/461/
Leading a charmed life
Early in my pregnancy, I had a battery of tests to investigate my rash (remember that?). It was all a bit worrying. My GP called me in to discuss the results but they found nothing other than a mild infection which they insisted on treating with antibiotics to my intense chagrin. My chagrin became even more intense when my gynaecologist subsequently said that it probably wasn’t necessary to take the antibiotics and my friend the heart surgeon said likewise (I had elevated protein in my urine for my whole pregnancy and it was fine she said, mind you, this is the woman who had to take STEROIDS while pregnant so really I don’t know why she was worried about a few old antibiotics). As one of these odd people who won’t take a paracetemol when pregnant, it really went against the grain to take a course of antibiotics. It was also quite difficult because I was throwing up every five minutes and I had to try very hard not to throw up after taking my pills. However, the antibiotics didn’t do any harm, though I’m not sure they did any good either. In any event the rash cleared up by itself eventually.So that was that.
I was surprised to get a slightly panicked message from my GP a couple of weeks later. When I called her back, she said that she needed to see me immediately. I zoomed off to her surgery. Most of the tests they had done were rash tests but they had also done standard pregnancy blood tests for the hell of it. In the excitement over the rash tests and the antibiotics, everyone had forgotten to look at the pregnancy blood tests. My GP had just noticed that I had tested positive for CMV.
Cytomegalovirus is commonly contracted from the urine of small children. It is therefore unusual to catch it before a first pregnancy. Women who have not been exposed in infancy, usually get it after their first baby and before becoming pregnant with their second. If you’re not pregnant, the worst it will do to you is give you flu like symptoms and you may have no symptoms at all. If you are pregnant, the effects on the foetus or foetuses can be very serious and there is no recommended treatment. I suppose because there is no treatment, CMV is not routinely tested for in Ireland, the UK, the US or France. I’m not sure what the situation is in other jurisdictions. In Belgium, they do test for it and as my GP explained to me, the standard practice, if you test positive, is to terminate the pregnancy and try again.
I remember sitting there and feeling as though someone had pinned me to the chair with a heavy weight. My GP was saying that though her last patient who had contracted the virus had terminated her pregnancy, she had had other patients who had gone on to have healthy babies. But it’s twins I thought – how could we cope with two handicapped children? How would it affect our little girl? And continued the GP the patient who had the termination was very unstable. I recommend that you continue the pregnancy. I sat up straight and tried to look stable and not burst into tears. She sent me running round the city for further blood tests, all of which confirmed the initial results.
As you will be aware, a little google is a dangerous thing. That night we combed the internet for information. We found a chat room for parents of infected children. My God those poor kids were so sick. I remember thinking that now before they are born may be the only time these children will feel well. Our internet researches also indicated that in the case of twin pregnancies, if one twin got it, the other was likely to get infected also. I felt very guilty. I swear I am a thorough hand washer but if the Princess had not been in the creche, it’s likely I’d never have caught it.
We went to see my gynaecologist together. She is not a panicker and she was as upbeat as she could be. She confirmed the odds in our favour (60% chance that the babies would not be infected) as found by us in our internet researches. She confirmed that catching CMV in the first trimester was the worst time but she also said that this was when the placenta was strongest so this was when there was the best chance of the infection not passing at all. She said that it had been standard practice in the past to terminate pregnancies where the mother was infected with CMV. However, practice had changed and doctors now believed that it was wrong and unethical to terminate all pregnancies on the basis that the infection might be passed on in some cases. She spoke about some of her other patients who had been infected. One woman had a child who was mentally handicapped “she was fantastic with Gaultier, but, yes, it has been hard for her”. I didn’t feel I could be fantastic. She spoke about patients who had had deaf children following an infection and how well those children spoke and used sign language. She said that the previous week she had carried out a termination at 20 weeks on a patient whose infected baby had microcephalus. We discussed having an amniocentisis. This could show that the infection had not passed, however, even if it indicated that the infection had been transmitted to the foetuses, this would not necessarily indicate that they had been harmed by it. One of the particularly unpleasant things about CMV is that, if a foetus is infected, adverse effects may not become apparent until up to 3 years after birth. So the amnio could show that we were in the clear, or not. Either way, we were going to continue the pregnancy and since, apparently, the risk of spontaneous abortion following amnio for twins is 5% (as opposed to 0.5% for a single foetus), it just didn’t seem worth it to us.
We talked a lot about what we would do, if a scan showed serious handicaps. We decided that we would probably proceed with the pregnancy. I had lots and lots of scans and every one of them was an agony of suspense until the doctor uttered the magic words “I don’t see any trace of CMV on this scan”. The scan can’t show everything of course (for example, deafness wouldn’t show) but it was ruling out a really serious and horrific handicap.
I thought about CMV constantly. It lent a certain perspective to my life. The week before I heard the news, the Princess had broken her tooth and I was most put out. I subsequently realised that perhaps a broken baby tooth wasn’t quite the catastrophe I had thought. I went out for lunch one day with a colleague and a very unpleasant consultant he had working for him. The consultant told a series of unsavoury and unfunny jokes about mental handicap. Normally I would have found this
unpleasant, but in the circumstances, it almost reduced me to tears. We reconsidered our plans. We had intended to move home to Ireland in the next couple of years, but, if the babies had a handicap, we would have to seriously consider staying in Belgium for the long haul because education facilities and supports here are so much better than at home. I found myself looking at mentally handicapped children and their parents. How did they cope? How did these children interact with others and, in particular, with their siblings? Things like this made me cry. And people kept asking me “How are the babies?” What could I say only fine but every query depressed me. We decided that we wouldn’t tell anyone except our parents. There was enough misery about and, I suppose, we didn’t want people constantly asking whether there was news or not knowing what to say.
As the pregnancy progressed, I found myself trying to believe my husband’s reassurance that the numbers were on our side and also that he had always lived a charmed life and it wasn’t about to change now. In the back of my mind, however, I kept thinking, superstitiously, that I’ve always been very fortunate and maybe I was due some monumental misfortune.
When the babies were born, the preliminary tests were negative for infection but positive for antibodies, so inconclusive. The boys had hearing tests and brain scans. Everything was fine but that didn’t mean everything would stay fine. The urine tests would be conclusive and they took weeks. I was too scared to ring the paediatrician to find out the results. My husband called,
he frowned, I was terrified. He hung up. “Only Michael’s results are in”. “And?” “And he’s fine”.? Apparently, he does live a charmed life. Our internet research made us feel that if Michael was clear, Daniel was likely to be clear also and last week, Daniel was confirmed as CMV free. I know it’s a cliche but it really was like waking up from a bad dream and realising that it was only a dream. Euphoria is very good for overcoming exhaustion. I recommend it.
I can’t help wishing that I’d never known in the first place which would have been the case had I been pregnant in Ireland, but I suppose it has opened my eyes to an extent to the rights and needs of handicapped children and their parents. I feel so, so lucky. My gynaecologist, who at each appointment regularly chanted her mantra “mieux avoir la merde avant”, had dutifully delivered on her promise of a perfect birth and perfect babies (NOT a promise she would have made in litigious Ireland); we’ve decided to reward her by putting her on our Christmas card list.
on 15 November 2005 at 10:45
on 15 November 2005 at 10:49
Sweetie(s) given
on 15 November 2005 at 10:54
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on 15 November 2005 at 10:57
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on 15 November 2005 at 12:59
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Glad your story has a happy ending but it sure makes you wonder what if…
on 15 November 2005 at 15:04
Sweetie(s) given
on 15 November 2005 at 15:08
Luck and happiness xxx
Sweetie(s) given
Mark Schenk
on 15 November 2005 at 15:56
on 15 November 2005 at 16:48
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on 15 November 2005 at 17:03
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on 15 November 2005 at 20:51
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on 15 November 2005 at 21:29
(And this post made me well up)
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on 15 November 2005 at 23:49
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on 16 November 2005 at 08:48
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https://www.belgianwaffle.net/2005/11/463/
8.30 Mr. Waffle announces that we need bread and milk and he will
purchase same at lunch time. “Well, I can make bread” I say and
then, after a pause for reflection, “and also milk.”
9.00 -11.00 Sit on couch trapped under feeding babies. Ring my
mother and wake her up. Tell her about the Affables’ twins.
She says “was it an IVF pregnancy?”
11.00 – 11.30 Decide to venture out with the boys with a view to
purchasing bread and milk as the rain has stopped. Make elaborate
preparations:
11.45 Decide to knock boys out with formula before leaving. Undo elaborate preparations.
12.00 Boys conked, redo elaborate preparations. Rain starts again. Abandon hope of ever leaving the house.
on 16 November 2005 at 13:40
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on 16 November 2005 at 16:06
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on 17 November 2005 at 17:20
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https://www.belgianwaffle.net/2005/11/464/
“It
does seem that everyone is having twins. It could be that people are having
their babies when they’re older (I don’t really go with this one, because my
mother didn’t have me until she was 35, and most Irish women who were having 6
and 7 children were having children in their late thirties, or even early
forties, and there didn’t seem to be that many twins).
It
could be that people are having their first pregnancy when they’re older
(Maybe the biological clock says, gosh, at long last a pregnancy, better make
the most of it and produce two).
Or
I have this sort of way out theory that just as there were more boys born
directly after the war (so that the population equilibrium was quickly restored
– New Scientist did a series on this a coupe of years ago, which doesn’t mean
it’s true of course), could it possibly be that less people have babies, so
those who have babies have more of themÂ…. I’ve nothing really to base this on.
Or
how about natural selection. Twins have a high level of family support, develop
advanced social skills, and make their parents very happy, so that they in turn
enter into happy successful relationships and so the “twin gene” gets
passed on and multipliesÂ…. That’s a nice theory!
Or
it could be the pill.”
on 18 November 2005 at 09:45
Sweetie(s) given
on 18 November 2005 at 12:18
Groupie, there may be something in what you say…
Sweetie(s) given
on 20 November 2005 at 14:47
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on 20 November 2005 at 14:49
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https://www.belgianwaffle.net/2005/11/465/
Quite miscellaneous matters while children nap
Got an email from my father-in-law beginning as follows:
“[A]s I sipped my espresso macchiato this morning (as an aside, this was the place in Smithfield where I asked a new member of staff for an espresso, to be told “Sorry-don’t understand English)….”
It’s far from espresso macchiatos he was reared; this celtic tiger stuff is getting out of control.
I rather like the juxtaposition of the standard signature and the content of this email from a friend and fellow Georgette Heyer fan:
GH [Georgette Heyer I’m reading] is Sylvester – lots of fun, although I think I could write them myself at this stage – the
signposts are pretty clear!
Nxx
N M
Professor of Extremely Hard Law
School of Law
University of X”
Got an email from my sister as follows:
“I know one shouldn’t laugh at names, but Kermit!!!
Organizational Announcement – Productivity Operations Leader – Kermit S
I am pleased to announce that Kermit S has accepted the position of Productivity Operations Leader, and will assume his new role effective Monday, November 21, 2005.
Kermit, has an extensive 25 year manufacturing/production background and a proven record of creating and maintaining high performance work teams. Kermit will be responsible for leading the overall process improvement efforts. X will report directly to Kermit, as will Y.
Please join me, in welcoming Kermit, his wife and his 2 children to the [insert company name here] Family.”
Showed this to Mr. Waffle but he refused to be amused. “It must have been a name before it was assigned to a frog.”  “Oh yeah, there are so many famous Kermits in history, Kermit of Arc, Pope Kermit, Kermit Roosevelt…” But he remains adamant and unamused, think it’s kind of a funny name myself.
Ventured out yesterday and today.
Yesterday my path out was barred by a pigeon sitting in the hall looking at me nastily. It was quite scary. I shouted shoo at it in an entirely ineffectual way and it looked at me in distinct scorn. I edged past it to the door and when I got there found it was bucketing rain and I had no umbrella so went back upstairs with Daniel attached to me in the sling and
left Michael in the hall in the buggy. On the way up I began to worry that the pigeon might attack Michael (stop sniggering, it was very malignant) so ran all the way back down to find him safe although the pigeon looked like he was reckoning whether Michael might be edible. When I finally secured my umbrella, I pointed it at the pigeon and opened and closed it
vigourously. If pigeons could laugh, I think that he would have. Malevolently. He certainly didn’t move and the three of us edged past very cautiously.
All of this going out is good preparation for next week
when we will be home alone as Mr. Waffle is off on a work trip. The boys and I will have to drive the Princess to the creche and pick her up (the alternative is worse). I am nervous, people.
Comments
on 18 November 2005 at 12:44
I’m with you on the Kermit – can you imagine having to go on a date with someone called Kermit? I mean, you wouldn’t would you? How could you possibly be romantic with Kermit? No. Mr Waffle speaks false – tell him from me. 
on 18 November 2005 at 13:29
Poor Kermit. But silly Kermit – you’d have to change your name, wouldn’t you?
(Homepage)
on 18 November 2005 at 15:05
I met a guy named Kermit once, years ago. I couldn’t keep a straight face. He gave me the eyeball of death and walked away. Poor guy. I bet he’s changed his name by now.
on 18 November 2005 at 16:32
Mmm I worked with some wonderfully named people at a German investment bank. Thermos Kartalis was delightful.
(Homepage)
on 18 November 2005 at 16:44
because i’m all about research:
Kermit
Gender: Boy
Origin: Irish, Gaelic
Meaning: “Without envy.”
Notes: Variant of Dermot, made famous by the popular green Muppet Kermit the Frog.
Keywords: gaelic, irish, famous, popular, green
Popularity: The name Kermit ranked 588 out of 1219 (Top 48%) as a first name for males of all ages in the 1990 U.S. Census. The name Kermit was not ranked among 88799 surnames for males and females of all ages in the 1990 U.S. Census.
“Without envy,” indeed. *snort*
(Homepage)
on 18 November 2005 at 20:32
I’m assuming you KNOW there really was a Kermit Roosevelt (he was Theodore’s (eldest, I think) son), and you slipped that in there to be tricky right? Good one! (p.s. I only know this random fact because I heard a review on National Public Radio (in the US) about a book written about the journey through the Amazon rainforest Kermit and his father took after TR’s second run for presidential office.)
on 19 November 2005 at 00:11
Or this guy: http://www.law.csuohio.edu/faculty/lind/
Would that be Carluccios? ON the pavement?
on 20 November 2005 at 14:48
SSC, alas, it would appear that the pigeon is boss.
Norah, ta.
Heather, Pog, Bobble, yes, yes, interesting.
The rest of you: you know far, far too much about Kermits. I am, however, delighted to discover that it means ” without envy”.
on 22 November 2005 at 09:44
What lovely boys. At the moment our own little darling has been complaining about life, the universe and everything for the last three hours and to me they look like peaceful, silent little angels in comparison.
