My Baby

Well, the few of you that read my blog already know about my recent tragedy. On July 3, I went in for a 20 week ultrasound (very excited because I brought Alan with me & we were going to find out the sex- plus he had never seen the baby move like I had, so I couldn't wait for that). After 15 minutes of taking u/s pictures, they told me that the baby had died, probably at about 17 weeks.

The following Monday I delivered the baby at 10:03 pm and that Friday we buried the baby in a cemetery.

We don't know the sex yet (too undeveloped to tell, but my doctor thinks it was a boy). The baby was 7.5 inches and weighed 3.2 oz. He most likely died from the cord being wrapped around his neck. The chances of that happening in the 2nd trimester are about 1 in 10,000. We're still waiting for the tests done on the baby's DNA and the placenta, so we'll know what to expect the next time. Those are the bare-boned facts. I won't include, for now, how unbelievable depressed I am when I think about my tiny little baby dying inside me and I didn't know and couldn't help even if I had known. Or the horror of spending 16 hours in the labor and delivery wing of a hospital, waiting to deliver your dead child whom you spent months looking forward to and loving. Maybe I'll save that for another time.

I don't think the pics above are really graphic (I have others of the baby in more detail, and while it's not that bad, I don't want to subject my baby to so much exposure on the internet.) Suffice to say, everything was there and in tact, and the only "grossness" was that the baby had been dead for a couple weeks so the bones had shifted a bit and the skin was disolored. He didn't even small bad, since the amniotic fluid had preserved him. His hands and feet were so perfect- right down the nails. The eyes, the nose, the mouth- even the little biceps- everthing was there but in miniature.

I don't want to leave this post on too sad a note. I'm doing ok and my family & Alan have been good to me. I'm taking it "one day at a time." (I never understood that phrase till now). I have to keep reminding myself, though, that little Joseph Gerard/Catherine Hope is in God's care now, and that's even better than my care. I don't know how the lack of baptism plays a role, but I might as well assume that God will let my baby in heaven, since thinking otherwise won't help anything and will drive me mad. So, here's my tiny baby.

2 posts in less than a month... I kick ass.

I am once again pondering whether I really want to be a lawyer. It's becoming more & more a reality that I will have to deal with and I don't know if I'm up for the stark unromantic majority of what I will have to do. I don't want to spend my days looking up shit on westlaw or lexis and preparing motions. I want what the movies & tv shows & books promised me. I need to find a niche in the legal field that will allow me to do that. Maybe if I carry around a little tape player (or ipod mayhaps) with the DUM-DUM new-scene sound of law & order and I play that every time I get bored as a lawyer it will make it seem more fun.
The scary truth is I've always assumed I'd be a good lawyer, but I really have no reason to be sure of that. Deep down I wanted to do something artsy or literary, you know, like writing books. But I thought that would be a waste- the easy way out. I wanted to contribute something you can sink your teeth into, like successful lawsuits, not some namby pamby novel to junk up the shelves at barnes & noble while deep down I would prefer people to read real classics rather than my book. It's like forcing yourself to eat your green beans and hope you have room for the ice cream afterwards. As Marotti said, inside every lawyer is a failed poet.

Too true, too true. I'm very sorry. It wasn't until I saw that Emma had my blog under a heading called "The Morgue" that I decided to do something about it.
Well, I'm halfway thru law school, and my GPA just went from about a 2.75 (first year) to about a 3.41 (last semester), although taken both together I'm just barely cracking a 3.0, which is great, because that means I can actually put my GPA on my resume, like NORMAL people. Speaking of which, if any of you know any lawyers in the DC/Northern VA area, please let me know. I'm nervous b/c this summer I'll have to actually get a real legal job and actually contribute something helpful, which I'm not sure I can do.
What else?..... Well... I'm still keeping up a long-term relationship of more than a year. Which, given my track record, is amazing. And the best thing about Alan is he keeps forgivving me every time I blow up and say something spiteful. I wish I could be more like that. Although, he doesn't provide me an opportunity to be forgiving really, because there's so little to forgive him for.
Is this all too personal? I've forgotten how to blog, to be honest and I don't want to bore you too much.....
I miss all you people out in CA and am so jealous of your sunshine and fresh air. I really want to come out again for graduation but I dunno....
Well, time to be productive. Now that I finally remembered my password, I'll be posting more & hopefully better posts too. I love you!!!

At Loryn's prompting, I shall try to resurrect this blog. I shall begin by recommending Flight of the Conchords, an HBO show/musical duo.

Here I am at Ave again. I'm sorry my sporadic posts have been so unenlightening. Will do better later.

Still alive.

zach galifiankis

My favorites are the Chuck E Cheese & Axe quotes. (He's a burly, bearded man with slightly crazy eyes). He's in the fiona apple video I posted below.


"You know you're an alcoholic when the bartender knows your name... and you've never been to that bar before."
"Three years ago my sister was diagnosed with multiple personalities, and there's nothing funny about that. But she phoned me the other day...and my caller ID exploded."
"I wish there was a morning after pill for Denny's Moons over My Hammy."
"When you look like I do, It's hard to get a table for one at Chuck E. Cheese."
"That show 'The Amazing Race'- is that about white people?"
"I would start a revolution, but... I just bought a hammock."
"I want to move to India or Pakistan, and become a cab driver."
"My name's Zach Galifianakis... I hope I'm pronouncing that right."
"I just released a DVD. It's selling like whatever the opposite of 'hotcakes' is."
"At what age do you tell a highway it is adopted?"
"I have a lot of growing up to do. I realized that the other day in my fort."
"I want to open up a store for cross-dressers. I'll call it 'Susan B. Anthony'"
"I wear a lot of Axe bodyspray, but I live in a black neighborhood and it's called Ask. And if you don't get that you're not racist."

ASSumptions

When you're a young person living in A2, the assumption is you go to U of M. So if you meet someone at a bar or what-have-you, and he asks what you're studying and you say law, the assumption is UofM. Fact is, it's a bit embarrassing to explain, "oh, no, there's actually a nice little law school across the street from U of M- that's where I go. What's it called? Um, Ave Maria. . . Well, it was founded by the founder of Domino's. . . uh, yeah, he has a lot of money and he just wanted to found a law school I guess. . . " Things get weird fast b/c, as all U of M students are eager to tell you, they have never heard of Ave. It literally is not even on the map, although groceries stores and some gas stations literally are.

I went to the dentist a couple weeks ago & I was a tad late & the last appt of the day so I didn't want to take up their time. The dentist was an old man who I initially liked b/c he kept telling me that I have beautiful teeth. Later I didn't like him as much b/c he took advantage of my inability to speak while he was cleaning my teeth, telling me, a propos of nothing, that we shouldn't be in Iraq. But I digress.

As he prepared the instruments he asked me if I'm a student. Yes, I say. What's my field of study? I'm a first-year law student, I say nervously, b/c the follow-up to that is going to take a long time. But I didn't get the chance to give my lame explanation of where I go to school. He got all excited and started shouting how brilliant I must be to have gotten in to UofM law and how hard a school that is to get into and did I know that it's a top ten for law and wowee zowee I must be smart and hard-working and I'm going to go places in life now that I'm a law student at UofM. Now he's whistling and handing me a rinse cup and I sigh, considering whether it would even be worth it to correct his assumption. But instead I take the rinse cup and say "Thank you."

Q. What do you do when you find out you have about $1,000 less in your bank account than you thought?

A. You go shopping. For hours and hours.

I am currently listening to Smooth Criminal & am realizing that the lyrics and the whole idea behind this song are really very bizarre. But then again look who wrote it.

It's Not About Love

It probably cost $25 to make this video & yet it's one of the most amusing music videos I've ever seen. And the song is delightful.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=krTE0AJkqj4&mode=related&search=

I was just going through my phone pics and I found a few more NY pics from New Years. The quality, granted, not so good, but, eh. The ice on the tree, though, is an Ann Arbor picture. Everything- everything was covered in its own sheath of ice, as if nature took the time one night to coat every individual twig, blade of grass- it was enchanting. It lasted for about a week. The pictures don't do it justice. It kinda felt like the world was that ice cave where Superman lived. Maybe. I haven't seen the Superman movies since I was about four, so my memory might be off.
The bridge is the Brooklyn Bridge over which Alan, Peter Fry & I walked, hungover on New Years Day, just to go to Starbucks, where I was so tired and thirsty from the alcohol and walking that all I had was a water. An ethical, fair-trade, ozone- and war-orphan friendly bottle of water. Then we walked back.

Shulamite only posts philosophy and theology now. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I kinda miss the days when he'd post stuff like this. http://thomism.wordpress.com/2004/04/30/who-says-america-isnt-a/

Rockefeller Center Tree. . . I had a lovely New Year's.

back before I was boring

I was looking thru my archives & noticed w/ a little sadness that my posts used to be much better. Now I just link dumb crap. Back in the day I didn't know how to link and I was the better for it. I came across this GOLDEN comment from my post 2 yrs ago announcing that I was reaccepted to TAC. Any guesses who it is?

"I got accepted too again! i'll be a second semester freshman. i told them i really didn't get as much out of that semester as i could have, because i was "too fucked up." they understood. i also told them how excited i was about reading harvey and his account of efficient causality in eggs. they were excited as well. then i told them i did not want to work in the kitchen again because i didn't like lucinda. they told me i have to talk to mr becher about that. before i left i asked if tushla was still in commission and they said they didn't know.


this post is a lie "

My Christmas list is short this year. Just one item.
http://www.victoriassecret.com/fantasybra102006/?rfnbr=3288

It's Lonely Out in Space

Never has smoking a cigarette looked so good.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NN3MGN899yE

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1053815657
I'm on a Fiona Apple kick & I really like the first minute of this song. The rest isn't that really worth listening to, but the first minute. . . wow, what an unusual melody. I think I have a crush on her. But I still like boys.