Snapshots

I am attending a conference this coming Friday to Sunday in San Francisco.  I delayed any booking of hotel and flight because I was not sure if Dez would feel well enough to come with me.  She decided to not come with me to San Fran, so this would cut down the amount of time I spend there.

About a year ago, the conference organizer had told us they booked a “block” of rooms at the Holiday Inn – Golden Gateway hotel for the attendees for a special price of $135 / night.  I thought it was too expensive, so I always planned to stay Jeff, who lived about an hour’s drive away.  I didn’t think the price was “special”, since when I checked the price about half a year ago, a normal room booked through their website was about $135.

As the conference drew nearer, I decided that staying with Jeff wasn’t a terrific idea after I found out the conference starts at 8:45am and possibly ends at around 9pm.  I would lose a lot of time in the commute, and/or Jeff would lose a lot of time driving me.  It would’ve been better if I stayed in downtown San Fran for 2 nights.  So I decided to use Priceline to hopefully minimize my hotel costs.  I’ve heard of it, but never used it until today.

For those of you who don’t know Priceline, the basic idea is this:  You name your own price, and if the vendor accepts your price, you are immediately “committed”.  So, for hotels, you pick your travel dates, your city, your quality (1-star to 5 stars), the “region(s)” where you are willing to stay, and your offer price.  After you picked everything, you then enter your credit card info, and submit.  If all the criteria are met, then the money is charged on your credit card and Priceline tells you which hotel you won your bid for.  If you don’t win the bid, you would have to wait 24 hours to bid with the same criteria again.  You can’t just change the price and bid again, but you can change/add a region, or change the dates, or change the quality of the hotel that you want, and then try again.

The PRO of using Priceline is the potential savings.  Historical trends show that people save up to 50% off the retail advertised prices of the hotels.  The trade off is that you don’t get to pick which exact hotel you stay at.

So, my plan was to pay around $60 / night to stay at a decent hotel in downtown San Fran.  The hotel where the conference is held is on the north edge of region 1.  But, because region 1 is so big, I could end up on the south end of region 1, which would be much farther than if I stayed at region 10 or 9.

As a test, I decided to try region 10 first.  I first picked 3.5 stars.  It said the average price was $169/night.  Offering $60 is kinda pushing it.  Well, I didn’t plan to win right off the bat anyway, so it’s a good test to see how the process works.

So I didn’t win.  I then added region 9, and adjusted the quality to 3 stars.  I was tempted to change my offering price of $60 to $65… but then I figured I have a few more days left, so I should stand my ground.

Again, I didn’t get it.  So $60 / night for any 3-star or higher hotels in regions 9 and 10 is simply too low.  I thought about changing the quality to 2.5 stars…  But then I figured to just try region 1 instead.

I chose region 1, 3-stars (it says average price is $118/night), and again offering $60.  As the server went to work querying the database, I hoped I either didn’t get it, or got it closer to where the conference is held.  I mean, I was willing to walk a few (up to 15) short blocks, but even that is pushing it.

I was like, wow, you got to be kidding me.  My offer was accepted by the hotel where the conference is held?  How cool is that?!  I have zero blocks to walk!  And to think the “special” price for conference attendees was $135?!  I would think the hotel is busier that weekend due to the conference… but maybe lots of people booked elsewhere (for cheaper) due to the $135 / night price tag?

I checked their website now, and a standard room for that weekend is now $160 / night if I were to book it through their website.  Wow.  This was the best-case scenario for me – cheap, 2-night stay at the hotel where it’s held.  I just scored a few extra hours of sleep.

This is part 7 of the baby series.  This is the final part of the recollection.  After this potential new parts will be recounted in “real time”.  Previous posts can be chronologically found in Surprise, Lost, Despair, Healing and Preparation, New Life, and Déjà Vu.

1:30pm, February 10th, 2009. It wasn’t long before the doctor called us in.  The difference between this and the last time was that I was able to accompany Dez into the ultrasound room immediately.

The doctor had Dez lie on the bed/bench, and I just stood near the door facing the monitor.  I wasn’t comfortable because I didn’t know if I wanted to see the monitor…  Half of me wanted to look away, and the other half wanted to see.  While I was undecidedly glancing at both Dez and the monitor, the doctor already had everything set up.

“There’s the heartbeat.” *in a calm tone*

I couldn’t believe it.  No, I don’t mean the, “OMG I can’t believe I aced the test!” way.  I mean it in the “What do you mean I won the lottery jackpot?” way.  I was trying very hard to see what the heck was on the monitor.  I couldn’t make anything out.  I saw nothing I recognized, and she said there’s the heartbeat?  Um, please don’t raise our hopes just so it could be re-dropped.

“156.  That’s the heart rate.” *while continue to wiggle her ultrasound baton-thingie to adjust the view*

I still couldn’t believe it.  I think I was in denial for a good minute.  Really, I couldn’t see anything I recognize, and she said all is well.  I was either dreaming, or something else was going on.  “No way.  This can’t be happening.”

But it was.

While my jaws were dropped and a stream of tears were flowing out of Dez’s eyes, the doctor made more measurements and adjustments, like the size of the fetus, heart rate range, etc.  I honestly had no idea what else she was working on, because she took a while.  I was still prepared for her to admit she made a mistake.

“Look, here is the heartbeat.” *pointing at this faint beating dot*

I suppose she was pretty confident then…

So we were done, and walked back out into the waiting room, relieved.  This time the result was again completely shocking to the both of us… in a pleasant way.  The rough “plan B” I was mulling over during the hour was now out the window.  We walked out of the hospital in a completely different mood than when we went in.  I drove Dez home and then went back to work as if one of the greatest emotional roller coaster rides never happened.

—–

To this day Dez and I still have our fingers crossed, knowing that just because everything seemed fine then does not guarantee anything in the future.  But it was great to know that baby’s growth is on track, and nothing seemed wrong.  This baby already made it farther than its sibling…  We’re now in uncharted territory. Here’s to hoping that all future baby posts are positive ones.

This is part 6 of a series that I have intended to blog about but never did.  I am doing it now to the best of my recollection from my perspective and will try to be as concise as possible.

February 10th, 2009. As we got closer and closer to the date of the 2nd appointment with the doctor, the slight anxiety that used to be in the very back of our minds became a more frequently topic.  Dez would ask me, “What if the baby’s dead?” And I would say, “We tried our best, and there’s nothing else we could’ve done better in.” We did not have a dating scan like during the first pregnancy because there was no point, since it did not guarantee anything.  But this appointment was supposed to be for the end of the 1st trimester, and the doctor would try to listen for the heartbeat (like last time).

The atmosphere was noticeably more tense the night before.  I think Dez was a lot more worried than me.  I wasn’t very worried because there really wasn’t anything we could do.  She kept feeling that there was a chance that the baby’s dead.  But that’s just the pessimistic side of her, as usual.

That night, I had a dream.  It was an impressionable time travel dream, actually.  I dreamed that I went to the future, December 2012 (supposedly the end of the Mayan calendar).  I checked out some headlines in the newspaper, and nothing out of the ordinary happened.  Dez went to the future with me, I believe.  Anyway, because nothing special happened, I decided to go further into the future, and we ended up in December 2015.  I saw that we owned a house (yup, the one with land and yard), and saw myself walking in the pathway in-between houses to the backyard.  There were bushes between the houses, and suddenly some guy jumped out and clubbed me in the head, and I fell into the bush.  I was a little shocked seeing that, and my impression was, “Holy crap, I’m dead!” And then Dez and I went into the house and checked out some headlines of the day, and I was wondering what I was going to tell my parents.

Anyway, I woke up, and Dez didn’t say I said anything during my sleep.  Well, I figured that seeing myself dead had nothing to do with the baby.  I mean, I still have like, 7 years to live, right?    (By the way, I am not putting much weight in that dream — but if I do get clubbed in the head in 2015… well, you can tell the cops about it)  I went to work for a couple of hours in the morning before returning home to pick up Dez to go to the appointment.

We were admitted fairly quickly this time (unlike the previous time, when we waited for an hour because the receptionist screwed up).  The doc came and asked a few questions, and knew that we were anxious to hear the heartbeat, so she was going to leave the other measurements (e.g. blood pressure, etc) until later.  So Dez got on the bench and the doc took that Doppler thing and started moving it around on Dez’s belly.

First we heard strong heartbeat, which sounded like blood flowing.  That was pretty obvious Dez’s, and the doc said so.  So she kept looking for the baby’s.

And she kept looking for it.

And she tried some more…

“Oh come on, this can’t be.” I was thinking to myself.  I could see Dez’s facial expression changing.  For every second the doc couldn’t find it, our hearts sank a little more.  I thought I could hear something that resembled a heartbeat, in a fraction of a second, from time to time.  But our minds are prone to pick up patterns that aren’t there.  By the end, I was very worried about Dez.

“I can typically find it at 13 weeks… but occasionally I can’t, so it doesn’t mean the baby’s gone…  It could be that the uterus is lower….” the doc says.  Yup, we heard that before.  I started to tune her out, and focused on making sure Dez was ok, and catching her if she fainted or something.  There were tears and heartaches, and I didn’t know what to say.  After the doc said some more reassuring things (like the previous doc), she went to get an ultrasound appointment set up somewhere — anywhere.  It’s only definitive if it’s confirmed on an ultrasound machine.  Dez was breaking down, slowly…

Finally, we got slotted in for an ultrasound at St. Paul’s hospital.  The doctor wished us luck, and we left the office.  We didn’t have much hope left.  I was thinking to myself if I was destined to be without a child.  If that was meant to be, fine.  Maybe we were meant to just adopt.  Well, at least we had a vacation planned in the beginning of March, so Dez could spend some time in the most happiest place on Earth (i.e. Disneyland, for those of you who didn’t know).  At least I finished all the urgent work I had to do, so I wouldn’t feel bad taking a week off of work to spend with Dez.  I was mentally gearing up to face all that waiting and bring her to get a D&C and burying this one…  I was going through the mental exercise of thinking how much worse it could’ve been, so I could be more optimistic about the situation.

We got home first so Dez could drink a lot of water (needed for ultrasound), and I could chow down a yogurt bar (since I didn’t eat lunch).  I called my supervisor to tell him the grim news, and that I needed more time off for the ultrasound.  It felt like last year.  Then we drove to St. Paul’s.  By the time we got there, which was an hour after the doc couldn’t find the heartbeat, our hearts were like the Titanic that sank to the bottom of the ocean.  I was wrong.  I should’ve been worried.  And this time I didn’t even give Dez a heads-up in my sleep.  In fact, that was the only thing I could hang on to… that I didn’t say so, so maybe the baby’s still alive.  Yeah, it wasn’t much of anything to hang on to.  Like trying to keep the Titanic afloat with a life jacket.

This is part 5 of a series that I have intended to blog about but never did.  I am doing it now to the best of my recollection from my perspective and will try to be as concise as possible.

Late December, 2008. So, we were expecting again!  But unfortunately, the answer to the question of whether or not life is now complete was a resounding no.  Now Dez remembered what 24/7 nausea feels like.  Not being able to eat, work, or go anywhere.  However, she did start off very positive — she was all set and determined to not let the nausea bring her down, and she wanted to work through it all.  Well, that determination didn’t last very long.

Since this was our second pregnancy, we knew the procedures: go see the family doctor to confirm pregnancy, get assigned to the same prenatal doctor (who was on maternity leave last year, so she’s actually new to us), go through the same questionaire, etc.  The only difference was that this time we also had to talk about the miscarriage.  She was very nice and understanding about our concerns.  Obviously we weren’t her first case of miscarriage.

Side note: because of Dez’s nausea, it’s very easy for her to tell if she was pregnant.  Those expensive pregnancy sticks are completely unnecessary.

Despite our enthusiasm, her nausea was the same or worse than last year.  I was again on my own for a lot of the things, and she was on her own, popping diclectin a few times a day to deal with the nausea (with very little effect, in her opinion), watching TV, and vomitting.  It wasn’t before long that she started through the “I don’t want to be sick no more” and “Why do I feel so nauseous” routine, with new additions of “I don’t want to be pregnant again after this” and “You’ll either get 1 child or no child if I miscarry again”.  This is interesting because she wanted four kids.  I wanted two, but could accept four.  Now apparently two is one too many.

Of course, women are always entitled to change their opinion, so I really didn’t take her distressed decisions too seriously.  Yes, I even told her that.  But regardless, conversations sometimes veer into the possibility of adoption, and “What if I miscarry again”.  It was never a pleasant topic.

20% or so women miscarry in the first trimester, so that’s actually a pretty high number.  I always thought (based on the oh-so-real TV drama, movies, and fictional books) that women hardly ever miscarry, and they only do under these sort of scenarios: 1) angry man slaps woman on the face and woman falls down the stairs, rolling on her head and stomach, 2) jealous and angry wife has a catfight with the pregnant mistress and kicks her in the stomach, or 3) “madam” who slips mysterious drug into the prostitute’s cup of soup or tea.  Yes, I’m not kidding.  I was most certainly ignorant about how miscarriages occur and their statistics.

In order to not be completely shocked or caught off-guard again, we had to be mentally prepared to lose another one.  But besides that and the nausea, everything seemed easier than last year.  So that was great news!  We limited the number of friends and relatives to tell, partly because the more people we tell, the more excited we get.  And the more excited we get, the harder the blow if it results in another miscarriage.  We just had to cross our fingers and hope for the best.

This is part 4 of a series that I have intended to blog about but never did.  I am doing it now to the best of my recollection from my perspective and will try to be as concise as possible.

April and after, 2008. The physical healing did not take too long, but the emotional healing did and left a permanent scar.  Some women want to try again as soon as they could, and some do not.  Initially Dez belonged to the latter group, but decided that she needed to get pregnant ASAP.

Seeing friends’ and relatives’ babies / kids was like rubbing salt into the wound.

However, being the more logical one, I convinced her we should wait until we make all the basic preparations first.  This means moving out of our one-bedroom leaking, moldy apartment, after the lease is up.  This also means that if we were to go on a vacation, which she desperately needed, it should be done first.  Since she was completely out of paid sick-days and nearly all out of vacation days, 2009 would be a better time to be pregnant.  It’s like we can only try once a year, due to how sick she gets.  We should also focus on paying off all our debts so she could stay home as long as necessary without too much financial pressure.  She should also start taking those prenatal vitamins.

But the wait wasn’t an easy one.  Parents occasionally ask, or indirectly beat around the bush, about when we’ll have another baby.  Even though I laid out all the prerequisites prior to getting pregnant again, Dez would sometimes throw tantrums telling me that the real reasons were because I didn’t love her, I didn’t want a child, or both.  For example, when I wasn’t looking for a new apartment, it must have been because I didn’t want to move, and I didn’t want to move because I didn’t want to fulfill that requirement, and that was because I didn’t love her, I didn’t want a child, or both.  My reason of waiting for the 1-year lease to be up was not good enough.

No matter.  Slowly, each condition was met.  We found a 2-bedroom apartment even closer to VGH that cost $300/month more, but was much, much nicer.  Relative to the previous place, this was certainly the best $300/month we could spend.  We also paid off her student loan by the end of August (as that was her goal), and mine by the end of October.  I was very proud of this accomplishment, actually.  $45K in 18 months basically, which was how much we would’ve saved had we not had any debt.  And this is after all the wedding expenses and honeymoon and first-home-together purchases.  Then we went on the 7-night Disney cruise, which was longer than the cruise part of our honeymoon, so it felt like a 2nd honeymoon.

Life was beginning to feel normal again.  She was happier, and I was happier.  I don’t think she’ll ever understand that a man’s happiness is very much tied to his woman’s happiness.  Sure, we get affected by work, but that’s external.  Much easier to deal with by comparison.  It’s the deafening silence and cold shoulders and misunderstandings from them that tear us apart from the inside.  Hm, perhaps women do know this, that’s why they do it…

Anyway, so now once I knock her up again, life is complete, right?