Pulled apart

I know I owe you all a post on why I chose a midwife, and I will. Possibly today since I'm playing hooky from the lab.

I spent all weekend installing new floors in our kitchen and an adjoining room. Every muscle in my body hurts and I"m exhausted. My house looks like a tornado has gone through it. Our upstairs stove and fridge is sitting on our front stoop, I'm going up and down the stairs 100x time in a 30 minute period trying to cook downstairs, but with everything but stove and fridge upstairs, this is after being on my hands and knees for 2 days laying down floors.  did I mention I'm 26.5 weeks prego???!!! WTF!

I also have a shit load of marking to do, data analyis, and data collection. I have personal finances, taxes to do. I have family functions I need to attend and help with. Oh and I have a 4 year old who I actually enjoy spending time with.  I have not seen friends in months and I can't even fathom when I will have time to.  I can't even find time for myself.All these different obligations are making me feel like I"m  being pulled apart. Each arm and leg is going in a different direction.

Between personal and "professional" obligations, I'm feeling like I am barely keeping my head above water...again. Which is why I bailed today on the lab. The scope is down, monkey woke up really late and I"m exhausted. I figure we'll run a bunch of errands today ie buy groceries, get the dogs license, moisturizer, nail gun, baby shower gift.  then I'll mark tonight and catch up on rest.  Okey dokey off to the races...

Don't say no one ever told you.

For the time first ever, I am going to write out my birthing experience of monkey. I'm doing this for a variety of reasons. (1) I want my story out there for subsequent posts I would like to do on the use of midwifery in women's health. Before I can do that, I need to have my experience out there to refer to. In follow up posts I will discuss why I choose a midwife over "traditional" medicine etc. (2) So none of you can claim to be going into the decision to push a child out your nether regions uninformed.

It taken me 4+ years to discuss what happened when monkey decided to pop out of my nether regions.  I don't really know why since I don't remember being traumatized by it.  Was it hell? OH HELL YES!!! It it was long painful and excruciating. To the point that when I think of giving birth, I reflexively cross my legs. Know I haven't thought about what its going to be like for the inmate.  However, I also remember knowing I would do it again, without question, minutes after that little boy was in my arms.  Apparently, according to my midwife, the notes from my last birth said it was traumatic. 

How did the labor start? Without me knowing. I was over a week late and at the midwife getting checked out and making sure everything was OK. They also massage the cervix to try and prep you.  When I arrived, she measure my belly and was immediately concerned that there was a change from the 3 days prior (when you're late you have to go in frequently).  Each midwifery practice has about 3-4 midwifes that all see you as the individual who delivers your baby depends on who is on call at the time, so the midwife I was seeing, called the one I had seen 3 days earlier to make sure she wasn't mis-reading the chart etc. She double, triple checked to make sure I was safe.  Since there was a change in my tummy size, possibly indicating a loss of amionitic fluid (not good) she sent me off to the hospital. She would've driven me there herself, but I did not want to leave my vehicle there and I really really needed to stop off for some Wendy's.

MW met me at the hospital and I was taken in to get an ultrasound done to ensure baby was OK and then I was set up on a fetal monitor for over an hour.  Everything seemed OK and from the monitoring it looked like I was in labor - not that I could feel it.

I was at the hospital pretty late, so hubby and awesome BIL picked up some greek food and we chilled out. I started to get pretty uncomfortable and thought maybe I had over eaten ( I LOVE souvalki).   At some point during the night I felt this incredible urge to take a shit, but nothing came out. This happened a couple time before I remembered that the feeling of having to do a number 2 is a sign of labor.

I had begun early labor at ~ 11pm on a friday.  All night, every hour or so I would get contractions.  All morning, I would get contractions 10 minutes apart for about 2 hours, then nothing and then they would start up again. These were HELL contractions, doubling over in pain, radiating from the small of back all around.  My MW kept in touch with me all day via phone advising me to conserve my energy, to eat and drink well.

At 6 pm on saturday they contractions started 5-6 min apart and got into the bathtub to try and get some relief. The midwife arrived at my house with 30 minutes. Turned off the bathroom lights, lit some candles for a more soothing atmosphere and had my husband keep a pot of water on the stove hot.  Her and Mr.SM took turns pouring water down my back, keeping the water warm, making sure I didn't slip under the water as I dozed off.  I was probably in the tub for 4+ hours. The only reason I got out, was that it was uncomfortable. If it had been bigger, I would've stayed in.  Oh and I puked about 3 times in that period.

I needed to sleep so I went to my king size bed and slept as much as I could. Mr.SM and MW dozed as much as they could in between the contractions and counter pressure. I was progressing very very slowing. At 3 am the pain was getting to much and I wanted to go to the hospital. The MW tried convincing me to go back into my tub - I should've listened to her.

I didn't want that. I was in pain and I wanted to drugs so she took me to the hospital where I was pre-registered. I immediately went into the shower, which only had a hard cold tile floor to sit on. I wished I was back at home.  I was having major back labor. Monkey's head was on my tail bone and it was excruciating.  I was progressing very slowly.  There was no anesthetist available till 7 am so I could not get an epidural till then.  By this time, there were two MW's there and it was up to me & Mr. SM to decide if we wanted to wait or if I wanted to try fentanyl with NO.  I chose the fentanyl.

At 1 pm Sunday (yes I started on friday) I was exhausted, the contractions were slowing, my water had still not broken and I was only 9 cm dilated.  I was frustrated because my body was giving out. This wasn't supposed to happen to me. I was the one who hiked up crazy mountains 5 month prego. I was running till I was 8 months. I was fit. I was strong. WTF!!! Frustrated and dejected I told MR.SM to just cut the child out of me.  At some point the MW wanted me to try and push even though I had no urge. I think she wanted to try and get some movement happening.

Thankfully he knew better. He talked me off the ledge.  The MW really really wanted to me to try letting her give picotin to try and get my labor going especially since the OB/GyN who she called in for a consult would not try forcep or vacuum unless I progressed more.

Since Mr.SM knew that I really really didn't want a C-section and since monkey was not in trouble - I was just exhausted, he OK'd the administration of picotin and waiting to recall the OB.  It was going to take 30 minutes to get the OR ready anyway so they figured they might as well get me going again.

The picoten worked. I felt the urge to push, something I was feeling before. Unfortunately I had already been signed over to the OB who ended up giving me an epidural. Why I'm not sure as it "didn't take" according the anesthesiologist and would only take "the edge" off.  Because I had progressed significantly (thanks to the picotin) the OB didn't do the surgery and used a vacuum to help monkey out.  For some reason I still ended up with third degree tears  perineal tear - perineal skin, muscles and anal sphincter are torn). I've been told by some dr that OB's should be able to prevent such severe but I don't know. 

The midwife apologized after as she felt she gave poor advice in getting me to push when my body wasn't ready and in not getting me an epidural. I was very happy with the care I was given. My only regret is getting the epidural. It didn't take and resulted in me being kept from by baby for >1 hr in recovery.  After monkey was born, all I got was a bundled up look for less than 2 minutes before he was whisked away with Mr.SM and I was put in recovery. 

The first people Mr.SM saw with monkey were his father and mine. They cried and held each other. My MIL got to cuddle with my child before I did. This pisses me off.

Now that I'm done writing this, I'm glad I did. It will help me remember what I want and why. I've been told this birth should be easier....I guess we'll find that out sometime this summer :)




 

Do I take the Dog or not! help help help!

OK, so here's the dealio - this evening we're heading out to our ski condo up in the interior. Its a long drive (>6hours) and it can get pretty cold when we're driving up. We take our a 4 passenger pick up truck, which has no room for the dog crate inside. 

Originally we were supposed to purchase a canopy for the truck, so we woudn't have to worry about our little gal (little for a pure bred german shepherd) getting cold on the drive up. However, because the cost of the canopy is a little high and we have to save for the added cost of the inmate, we haven't put the money into it.  However, I can purchase a blanket to wrap around her crate and then put a tarp over it to prevent the wind from going through. Her crate would be locked up against two walls of the truck bed as well to prevent cold from going through. I think she should be fine in terms of temperature.  She's a german shepherd with the a thick coat who is used to staying outside. My biggest concern is the windchill, but I think the precautions I"m taking should keep the wind chill out.


I really really really want to take her up with us. Monkey can only ski for half the day and it'll give him something to do in the afternoon - playing with her in the snow.  It will force me to get my ass off the couch and go for a walk in the morning prior trying to get some work done.  My concerns are that she is an outside dog and we have no yard in our unit. Therefore, when I'm not outside she would have to be crated. I know lots of people crate their dogs overnight or while they're at work and I have no issues with it. I just feel bad because she normally has a whole yard to play and run around in.  Is it kinder to leave her home by herself or take her with us and have her crated for longer than she normally is???

I'm so torn. I've been taking her with me to the local mountain when monkey is skiing with his daddy and she loves it. I feel like whatever decision I make, I'm going to do wrong by her...help me!

So Cath really just wanted to brag

So this monday, I'm minding my own business at the lab, studiously working away to try and find out where on my gene of interest a particular insert has been inserted.  The organization that inserted the exon (Fly trap - which makes freaking awesome tool for us!) has the information in one format, but our database (FlyBase - slow, but rocks and is run by volunteers) does not have it. This makes it difficult to compare where the insertion is relative to others IF you're a newbie to reading DNA like me  - leave me alone, I do more cell biology and was not trained as a molecular biologist or anything close as an undergrad.!!!!!

I was struggling to figure out what I needed when I  tweeted a request for FlyTrap and FlyBase to better communicate, which led to a reply from Cath:

I thought, Cath was just sending me an innocent reminder (though she did neglect to wish me a happy birthday, should've been my first clue!).  However, upon checking out the standings, I realize that she just wanted to be able to gloat about how well she did last week. Top point earner of the week AND edged past me for third place.   Not much has changed other than Ricardipus is now tied with Bob for 3rd. Hopefully I will not forget to change my picks again and will actually have a hope of kicking Cath back behind me again.

Lies, lies and more lies

I vaguely remember promising to (1) post more often since I've been saved from hell and (2) to do the hockey pool update this week.  Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

yeah right. I'm a PhD candidate with a bun in the oven and a 4 yr old running around! What was I thinking! Actually, I'm busy analyzing all that confusing clear data. I've come up with a funky theory to explain what could be going on except for the crucial piece of data that I need to support said theory is not of the clear and convincing variety...URGH science...

Anyways, I'm up for lab meeting this week, and am trying to get a story put together so the hockey update will happen after said meeting, but since I had a crappy week, do we really care if its a bit late? Nope :) 

Data oh Data what are you telling me

Last year I spent a considerable amount of time writing up a mock grant. It had to contain all the thing a real grant would contain, objectives, rationales, specific aims, hypotheses etc. It was a challenge, but won that really helped me to learn more about my subject area and more about what could or could not go wrong. Painful as it was, I did learn something from it. The last few months (since my comps), when I wasn't suffering from nausea, pregnancy induced sleepiness, or crazyness I have been tackling those specific aims. Much to my PI's delight, I have very clear and convincing data. My images are beautiful.  Except the data isn't showing me what I predicted. Yeah, yeah I know cry me river! Hear me out thought

Based on in vitro vertebrate data, I hypothesized I would see a particular phenomenon, in vivo, in my invertebrate model.  (We should all know that I work on the most amazing and wonderful mode organism, the venerable Drosophila melanogaster.) Thing is, I'm clearly not seeing the phenomenon seen in vertebrates.  So WTF is going on!!!

I know I shouldn't complain I should be happy on multiple fronts. The main thing I should be happy about is that  the data is clear and convincing AND more importantly my PI happily accepts clear and convincing data, regardless of whether or not its what she wanted to see.   This is huge, because I have worked for the PI that just had me redesign and redesign the experiment to get the result he wanted. Not. Cool.

Secondly, my treatment is having an effect - I do something to protein X and I get a phenotype. My phenotype is very clear and unique to my protein of interest.  The question is, what is the mechanism of the phenotype? What is the function of X, such that its loss is causing A?  We / I though it was due to a mechanism hypothesized to occur in vertebrates, based on similarity of our proteins and the structures they are involved in. But as I just said that is not happening.  Which means I have to come up with a new theory....which is painful and hard for me. Luckily, I don't have to do it right away. I want to confirm that the phenomenon does not occur by doing some additional controls. These will not take alot of time and will confirm that the phenomenon does not occur vs my assay not being sensitive enough to detect the phenomenon.  No, I'm not beating a dead horse. The mechanism I am looking at is a signalling pathway and I've only looked one step down. There might not be enough of a change to detect, so I'm going to look further down the pathway to be sure that there really is no change.

I shouldn't say I've been in data hell. Since its good, clear data. But something is going on with my Filezilla **such that its downloading files off the server at extremely slow rates (30Kb/s vs its normal >150Kb/s). Considering I have image files near 1G each, its been a frustrating few days. Slow and frustrating because it takes forever for me to get a file, but only about 10 minutes to analyze it. 

But I guess I get lots of time to think about what is going on.....

and PhysioProf, if you're reading this dont freaking tell this is what science is.  Just. don't.

***if anyone knows what could be going on with the Filezilla please let me know.

Importance of Communicating with your PI

I have probably lost a ton of followers and readers over the last few months.  Which saddens me, but eh, what can you do when life gets in the way in of blogging. I still have to write an ode to my little monkey for his fourth birthday, but since I'm over a month late whats a few more days right?

So this post is to shine a light on the good PI's. Yes I know, its hard to believe they exist, with the blogosphere filled with tales of woe (justifiably so).   Heck, I originally started this blog because of the issues that I was having with my original PhD advisor. However, the stars deemed me lucky enough to land me in my current lab, with my current advisor that you are all sick of hearing how wonderful she is. 

Not to say that we haven't had our issues, for which a lack of communication was the core issue.  You would think that would've taught me a lesson but you know, I"m a slow learner :)

My goal for 2011 was to not sink and more importantly to not be feeling like I'm constantly struggling against sinking. I want to swim this year.  Being pregnant and not wanting to spend years getting this PhD, I need not swim. 

I was not swimming this past January. Mostly because the PI for whom I was TAing for was a completely unreasonable douchnozzle. S/he had extremely high expectations for the amount of work I was supposed to be doing, expected me to not only apply course content but to also help create it. I would speak to my PI about it periodically, who would rea-affirm that no SM you only work 12 hrs/week, no you only apply course content, would you like me to say something? Tell PI, you can not do x and y because I, your supervisor, need you to do z. Always supportive.  It didn't matter what my PI said, this person I was TAing for was a controlling bully that refused to understand that my priority is research and helping the students, not being his/her bitch.  At the end of January, I broke down in our lab office, to our Research Associate. I had been up since 3 am trying to figure out how I was going to get all my TA duties done and get enough data for a paper by the time Parasite decides to come out, while actually being a good mom and wife as opposed to the stressed out exhausted person I was. The DemandingPI was not listening to anything I was saying. The students were complaining to me and asking me to do something. It was just a bad situation.  One that I never openly talked to my PI about.

I didn't come in to the lab, the day after I broke down as we were going on a short family trip but I received an unexpected email from my PI. She told me to enjoy my weekend and relax.  WTF, why was she emailing this?  I may not always succeed, but I try my damnest to a mature, independent student. And I try to solve my problems on my own, which is always the smartest thing. Our amazing RA had recognized that I was being bullied by the other PI, that is was neither fair or healthy to be in the situation that I was. S/he also recognized that I wasn't going to ask my PI for help. So she did.

I don't know all the details, other than my PI was not impressed when she found out the details of what was happening. She got on the phone with our departmental advisor and with the PI I was TAing.  Found out what was happening, through various sources and made it clear that the treatment I was receiving was unacceptable.  She stood up for me. She protected me.  To say I feel like a weight as been lifted is an understatement.

I've since had a meeting with our Graduate Advisor to determine what I should've done, where I went wrong etc. It was great to have that meeting as s/he, very diplomatically, assured me that I wasn't crazy, that I did the right thing, and yes I was in the right.  I've been sorta vague on details but through the whole situation I was being made to feel like I was not in the right that I was supposed to be doing these duties etc.

My point is that had I actually openly talked to my PI earlier, I could've saved myself weeks of grieve. If it wasn't for our RA, I would probably still be struggling not to drown. Power differentials can wreak havoc on someones ability to stand up for themselves. The fear of financial are huge to grad students. I did not / do no want to be the "problem TA". I did not want to cause any waves that would make it hard for me to TA in the future. These fears, prevented me from standing up for what was right. Thankfully I have a PI and RA who saw this and stood up for me.  I am also thankful because I don't think my PI is unique in doing what she did. For all their faults, both my MSc and my original PhD supervisor would've gone to bat for their students.

Now that I"m getting closer to a strong swimming stroke in lab and life, hopefully I'll be back posting more regularlys.