if you see cerclage on the spa menu don't fall for it

It's a beautiful word. Cerclage. It sounds like something with hot towels and lavender oil and firm Swedish old lady hands, ridding your body of toxins and cellulite and dead skin cells, leaving you smooth and glowing and ready for your honeymoon in the French Riviera.

No.

It's an unpleasant surprise your OB/GYN springs on you when you've gone in for what you think will be a routine appointment. You get an ultrasound and your doctor says, "Hmm. That's not my favorite thing to see." And then she says something about your cervix and says the word "funneling" and says "hospital" and suddenly you have an hour to go home and pack your bags and go to Swedish Hospital, which is a totally different kind of therapeutic Swede.

One thing you can do during that hour is break out into a fast-burning fight with your mom in which she might say something like, "I DON'T LIKE THE WAY YOU'RE TALKING TO ME" and then you can say things like "I REALLY DON'T GIVE A SHIT" and "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE RIGHT NOW" because this is a good way to relax when you're under pressure. It's even better when your small son watches this exchange and looks at you like you've started projectile vomiting werewolves, because then he'll really be in the mood to give you a hug when you leave and won't hide from you as though you were directly coming after him with a shiv. So that's one option.

Another option is for me to stop writing in the second person because I can't keep this up the whole way. I never meant for it to get this far.

Let's jump to me in the hospital. First, a short list of things I don't like:

IVs
blood draws
surgery

Then, a thing someone might say. Like, an exclamation of sorts:

Too bad!

Let's be balanced, though. A short list of things I like:

adjustable beds
room service
nice ladies

And another short exclamation:

See?

So, that happened. I went in last Thursday, had my blood drawn and hep lock put in for my IV, got amniocentesis to make sure I didn't have an infection, was tended to sweetly by Dave and my friends Elizabeth and George, and on Friday morning had a little surgery to get a cerclage placed. On Friday night I watched "Rain Man" in my hospital bed, which the Percocet rendered quite enjoyable. On Saturday I had another ultrasound, and later had some untoward bleeding followed by the most painful goddamn motherfucking cocksucking exam in history to check the cerclage, made even more undignified by its being conducted on an upside-down bedpan. Why my nice room at the fancy hospital had to turn into some kind of fucked-up makeshift M.A.S.H. unit I will never know. But there was screaming, and also crying, and gripping of hands, but then soon after that I was given the okay to go home.

Cerclage, right. I forgot to tell you what it is. It's when they sew your cervix shut to prevent pre-term labor. There's regular cerclage, which I think is called McDonald cerclage, and then there's Shirodkar cerclage, which is what I got, which involved some crazy shit I was none too happy to be awake for while they were performing it/describing it. (Then there's abdominal cerclage which is even crazier, so thumbs up on not getting that one.) I had a spinal block instead of general anaesthesia - better for Fred, but not a source of tender, soft focus Kodak memories for me. The surgeons were all "knife this", "dissect that" and I was like LA LA LA I DON'T NEED TO KNOW EVERY DAMN THING YOU'RE DOING A-LOUET-TE JE TE ALOUET-TE ALOUET-TE JE TE PLUMERAIS!

While I was in the hospital, Finn asked Dave, "Did Mommy run away?"

I'm getting tired of typing, now. I'm typing with one hand because I'm lying down funny. The cerclage went well, but the upshot is that I now have to be on strict bedrest until Fred is born. His due date isn't for four months. Ai yi yi. I meant to talk about that in this entry, the first stages of facing down that gaping maw of time spent lying down in an uncomfortable position. But that will have to wait until a little later. I'm out of juice.

More details to follow. Once I find a better writing position, I imagine there will be more details accumulating here than the world can bear. Enjoy your reprieve!