california day #7, also known as a dedicatory post to the ultrasound tech who earned himself a cold fold-out chair for his eternity in the fiery place

i realize that i'm pretty much all over the place with my postings, but what can i say? i'm a random gal.

i wrote earlier about one story about our trip in december to california, and i figured i'd share another, mainly because i can now find the humor in it.

but at the time it happened? not so much.

it was the day before we were leaving, and what should have been my 3rd day in disneyland. we had also made a little baby-sitting swaparoo deal with carrie & troy:

(a visual for your pleasure. they are even less normal than they look in this picture.)

where one couple would put all of the kids to bed while the other couple was able to go back to the park and actually ride some adult rides. (not that the 20 times on the "bug's life" slower-than-molasses toddler train isn't a blast.)

on the first night, we had watched carrie & troy's kiddos & the 3rd night they were planning on taking care of our hooligans.

but unfortunately, i woke up on disney-day#3 with some pain in my stomach. i got up and got ready anyway, and ate a little breakfast.

big mistake.

as soon as i put something in my stomach it was rejected and i ran for the bathroom. the sharp, upper abdomen pains didn't go away after the food found its way back out of my esophagus. in fact they increased.

i came out of the bathroom, told ben that i wasn't feeling well and he should take the kids without me, and hopefully i would be able to meet up with them later. i was bummed, and hoped it would pass.

but 7 hours later, i was still in a crazy amount of pain and running to the bathroom about every 20-40 minutes. there was nothing i could do once the stabbing pain would start and i had experienced this same illness right before thanksgiving. same pains, in the same place. and they were only getting worse.

so when ben called in the afternoon, i asked him to call our insurance to see if we had out of state coverage. i didn't go to the dr. the first time i had gotten sick in november, but was starting to wonder if these were gallstones or something.

unfortunately the only thing our insurance covered was an out of state ER visit. well i felt that was a bit dramatic, so i decided to just wait it out.

ben and the kids came home that evening, the kids ate dinner and went to bed. i was still sick. and by this point, add a bit teary to the story because it had taken MONTHS to save up for this dang trip and i had missed out on an entire day of fun, not to mention what should have been a date night with ben.

at about 8:30, i couldn't stand it any longer. it wasn't just the pain and the barfing, but also the knowledge that we were leaving first thing in the morning for a 6 hour ride home. so if there was something that i could do to feel better before hopping in that car, i wanted to do it. and take 10 of them.

finally at 9pm, i had had enough. the kids were asleep, we left the adjoining door of our hotel room open for carrie & troy and left for the ER.

i have been a part of many an ER visit and i know that the term "emergency" is used loosely around there.

about 2 hours later, i was finally seen by a doctor who said that i needed to get an ultrasound done to see if there were any gallstones or kidney stones.

and this is where our story begins. (all of that rambling was just backstory info. bet you're wishing i had told you that sooner, huh?)

the ultrasound tech came sauntering up with a wheelchair, looking a lot like this guy:



mustache included.

i got in the wheelchair and we took off! meaning he went fast. a little too fast, because one of the wheels caught mid-spin and the wheelchair lurched forward, almost dumping me out of it.

ultrasound tech dropped the F-bomb and slowed down. at this point i realized that i had more to fear then the stomach pains i had been enduring.

i lay down on the bed, and since i was merely clothed in a hospital gown & my birthday suit, ultrasound tech put a blanket over my legs so i could expose my stomach without exposing the rest of my goods.

as he went to squirt the freezing cold ultrasound jelly on my stomach he looked down and said, and i quote:

"woah! just had a baby, huh?"

ummmm.

huh?

it took me a minute to figure out what he was implying.


i looked around like this:




and then like this:




and when i realized that he was referring to my stretch marks, looked like this:



and this:




{ now here's the deal on stretch marks. i think they are totally lame. not in the fact that when we as women get pregnant, get them, but more in the fact that it seems like there is such a stigma attached to them.

the women who get them (myself included) seem to just want to DIE the minute they see one forming. not all women, i'm generalizing here. we pull out our cocoa butter and oils and lather ourselves up in hopes of stopping the metaphorical tear in our nylons.

and the women who don't get them seem wear it like a badge of honor that their skin is still unscathed and they are just born blessed, lucky and chosen. (again, generalization.)

and some women? they. just. don't. care. and these my friends, are the women to be jealous of.

here is how i feel about stretch marks in general, and mine in particular.

when i was pregnant with caleb, i didn't get one stretch mark until the day he was born. then i think because he hadn't dropped at all and my body just went from:

hey! i'm carrying 17 extra pounds around! no big deal!

to:

holy mother of pearl! there is something inside of me and moving very quickly in the southern direction and i have no control over this! let's stretch out to make room for the party going on!

i remember the utter and sheer disappointment i felt when i came home from the hospital with four small stretch marks on my lower abdomen.

when i was pregnant with leah, i vowed to not have the same thing happen. but right around 8 1/2 mos along, my body disagreed. i ended up with about 6 more stretch marks, all again on my lower abdomen. none of them even reaching my belly button. i realized i was still disappointed about getting them, and decided to change my frame of mind.

so. now how do i feel about them?

well in my quest to figure out why we as women judge each other so harshly, and hold each other up to an insanely high standard...

i own my stretch marks.

i'd like to say i love them, but i haven't quite gotten there yet.

however, i love my children, and they are the cause of the map on my skin and if i had to trade the smoothness of yore for the silvery lines of today i wouldn't.

they signify the journey. so i own them. and quite frankly, if you have them, i think you should too! }

back to the story. there was a purpose for telling you that.

so when ultrasound tech said,

"woah! just had a baby, huh?"

all of that "i own my stretch marks" stuff flew out the window. i became completely and utterly self-conscious.

"well, uh, yeah, uh, a while ago, uh," i stammered.

AND THEN HE SAYS,

"jeez. must have been some baby." emphasis on the some.




HUH?

excuse me?


he did NOT just say that to me!


so i had gone to flustered and self-conscious to ticked off and indignant.


"what is that supposed to mean?" i asked him. with a tone.

even though he was an idiot, he realized his mistake.

"oh, um. nothing. so what's going on with you? why are we doing an ultrasound?" he changed the subject.

"well i've been having some really severe sharp stomach pains and the doctor just wanted to check and make sure i didn't have gallstones or something," i answered, just trying to make it through the rest of the ultrasound without taking the jelly out of his lame hands and squirting it into his eyeballs.

he started laughing.

"what's so funny?" i asked.

"gall stones? doubtful. you're caucasian. my guess is that you ate some spicy mexican food last night and can't handle it." and kept laughing.

that was IT.



"you know, it's really going to SUCK to be YOU if these stomach pains turn out to be pancreatic cancer or something and you just sat here laughing at me in pain," i retorted.

he stopped laughing. cleared his throat. ahem. ahem. aheeeem.

"well, no gall stones," he said quietly.

"fabulous."

my tone was icy.

he wheeled me back at a normal pace in silence.



now i ask you.

what kind of an ultrasound tech asks these sort of questions and makes these sort of comments?

that's right. the kind that earns themselves a cold fold-out chair for their eternity in the fiery place.



mmm-hmm.


{ p.s. no, i did not have pancreatic cancer. the doctor had said that when i got back home i needed to be checked for an ulcer or hernia. no i haven't gotten checked for those. because i chalked the experience up to food poisoning (which my bro-in-law also came down with the next day). caused by what? spicy chinese food. take that ultrasound tech! }