Erica’s Blog

Here are some things Suzanne learned at the conference:

• Still births happen at night.
• Still births happen MUCH more often in women with low blood pressure.  This could be b/c when they’re sleeping, their blood pressure drops EVEN lower.  With monitoring, warning signs can be read, and still birth (in this situation) possibly prevented.
• In African-American women, the incidence of still birth increases exponentially between 38 and 40 weeks gestation and is totally off the chart after 40 weeks.  This, of course, begs the question “If this is the case, why don’t doctors have their African-American patients deliver at 38 weeks instead of making them wait longer, thereby risking the babies’ lives?”
• “Cord accident” could mean almost anything.
• There is no standard criteria for whether a baby’s death is classified as a miscarriage, a still birth, or a neonatal death; it depends on the whim of the doctor in charge.
• There is NO standard for what biological samples and data are collected from still births or even from neonatal deaths.  This makes any kind of research next to impossible.
• Still births are not included in the infant mortality rate.
• Most still births of “unexplained cause” are really of UNEXPLORED cause.  If the cause isn’t obvious, doctors don’t really even look into why the baby died. 

Well, I haven’t touched that gold Wool-Ease scarf in days & days.  Need to pick it back up today.

I did, however, make Melanie a scarf for her birthday.  I didn’t get a picture of it, but I’ll take one of her wearing it sometime.  It was a keyhole scarf in LB Homespun (Coral Gables) with stripes of Fun Fur (Mango) here & there.  I also crocheted (!) her two “hair flowers” (elastic ponytail holder with a flower crocheted around it) — one to match the scarf, one in uniform colors.

Made a handful of “hair flowers”, mostly in uniform colors, but some just out of assorted scrap yarn.  These are for the “$1 bin” I’ll have when I do the holiday boutique at school.  I want to have stuff of various prices, so there’s stuff anyone can afford.  I figure the kids may want to buy the “hair flowers”.

Did half of a Fun Fur Stripes scarf in Mexicana.  Would have gotten farther on it, but the other skein was in the attic, and the Things were asleep. 

“Jane, you magnificently ignorant…”  WAIT!  Wrong Weekend Update. 

Saturday, hubby took Thing One to E-Soccer.  Thing Two decided not to go this week.  Personally, I think she just didn’t want to get dressed.  Here’s last week’s video of Thing Two and Andrei playing soccer.  Here’s the video of Thing One.

Saturday night, we went to our friend Melanie’s birthday party.  It was a craft party at Michael’s.  It was cool; they have a room just for classes & parties.  Melanie had chosen denim tote bags, so all the girls were decorating them with sequins, jewels, buttons (with the shanks clipped off) and a marabou boa.  Thing One wasn’t as into it as Thing Two, but it was cool.  They had sandwiches, cake, etc., too, and Mel opened her presents.  It got awfully loud in that room, but when the parents were on noise overload, we could go wander around the store.  I was very proud of myself for not spending a penny while we were there, even though I went over and looked at the yarn.   I was proud of Thing Two for being so well-behaved, even though she was the youngest kid there.  I’m sure it was partly b/c she was so into the craft.  Thing One had a bit of a hard time.  She was really excited, not as into the craft and, I think, a little insecure with all the third-graders, so she got kind of silly and wild.  I was getting really frustrated with her, but we made it through.

Sunday, we went to our friends’ tenth (and last) annual Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation fundraiser.  They did one of those Chevy’s ones where you go eat there and Chevy’s gives 20% of your bill to the charity.  They had a raffle, too.  Hubby met the Things & me there b/c the AmEx tournament went into two tie-breaker holes (he was bummed that John Daly didn’t win).  Called hubby after I got there and asked him to bring more $$ for raffle tickets.  Good thing I did b/c the one I bought didn’t win, but I won twice with the ones he bought!  First, I won a $10 Jack-in-the-Box certificate, then a $10 Target card (used it to buy this, which I’d had on my wish list for a long time).  I may have won more, but I had to leave before the raffle was over.

Later, we went to a pot luck with our friends from SAND.  Everyone’s taking turns hosting, and this time was at Suzanne’s flat in the City.  Very cool, funky place.  She’s been there 13 years, so, thanks to rent control, she’s got amazing rent.  One of Thing One’s former teachers from Bible class, Leondrea, came over to hang out with the girls.  She’s been married for two months — ah, I remember those days!  We got her some take-out from Chevy’s and gave her the Jack-in-the-Box certificate (*I* certainly don’t need it!).  Anyhow, it was good to hang out with Suzanne, David, Heather, Mark & Gabrielle.  We pigged out on a Middle Eastern feast. Suzanne had lots to share from the miscarriage/still birth/SIDS/neonatal death conference she’d just attended.  For the two other couples, she brought back a “certificate of life” b/c since their children were born still, they didn’t get birth certificates.  For each of us, she brought back a cool charm.  The idea is it’s a leaf falling off the family tree in remembrance of Paul.  Isn’t that a great idea?  David & Heather ended up deciding to find out the sex of their upcoming baby….it’s a boy.  His name will be Davoud Mansour.  Davoud is the Persian version of David, the name David was born with.  Cool, eh?