I would ask if things could get any worse, but I know they can, so I'll just shut the fuck up and go my bleary little way. Things have really sucked lately, but I can't blame god, since I don't believe in him, so who can I blame? I can blame myself, but this time, it's not really my fault. Fate is a cruel bitch.

The job hunt is going slow. It's going but it's going slow. I keep looking up web jobs, but get more depressed with everyone I find. Shit, there are probably high schoolers with diaries here in D-land that have better web design skill than I do by now. We didn't even know about the internet when I was in high school, and now they're teaching .asp, PERL, JavaScript and other shit. I've become the Commodore 64...I'm obsolete (but still fun to play with occasionally).

To make matters worse, the wife gets a call Monday evening saying that the results from a blood test they did came back abnormal and show a possible risk of our baby having Downs Syndrome. That, of course, came out of the blue and totally freaked her out. She spent the rest of the evening researching the test online to find out more about it. This test measures Auto Fetal Protein (AFP...which the fetus urinates into the amniotic fluid and then passes on to the mother's blood stream to be expelled) in the womb and if it's low, there's a risk of Downs Syndrome and if it's high, then there's a risk of neural tube defects, like Spina Bifida. Well, it turns out that this test isn't too reliable. It has to be done within a specific time frame, 14 to 18 weeks. If the mother is not as far along as suspected, or is farther along than suspected then it can cause a "false positive" result. Meaning that the test will come back indicating a possibility for a birth defect when there is none. Also, a mother having twins can cause the result to be misleading as well. When an abnormal result comes back, the next step is to do a high level ultrasound. It's much easier to tell how far along the fetus' development really is and if that has effected the test. Since the wife's test result came back low, then we feel that we were off a week or two in our estimation of the date of conception.

Anyway, we're going to have a level 2 ultrasound next Tuesday to find out if the dates are correct. If they are, then the next step is to do an Amniocentesis. Basically, they take a long needle and stick it into the mother's abdomen, into the womb and withdraw some amniotic fluid. Then they can test the fluid itself to see if the fetus is ok. The problem with this is that there's like a 1/100 chance of the mother miscarrying afterwards. Our chances of having a baby with Downs Syndrome are only 1/210, so we're kind of leaning towards not getting the amnio. We also went to a web site where other mothers who have gone through the same thing have posted their stories. Every one of them said that they received a "false positive" and that their babies turned out perfectly healthy. That helped take a lot of the worry off. We'll feel much better after the ultrasound, though.

What I don't understand is why they even do a fuckin' test like that, if the results aren't very reliable. The wife's doctor even said that they're not that reliable. But, according to him, it's something they have to do. If they don't do it and then later down the line, the baby shows signs of birth defects, then people will be like, "Why didn't you do the AFP test?" The thing is, most mothers don't know they can deny the test so they have it done and end up spending weeks, if not months, totally worried for nothing. The only way for the test to be 100% perfect is if the mother has kept track of her period exactly and they know the date of conception. Other than that, it's almost a crap shoot.

But that's not the worst of it. The wife got the call on Monday, well, she already had an appointment for an ultrasound the next day. Cool, we'll find out what we need to know and won't have to wait a week or two. Yeah, right. Since when has shit ever gone right for us, eh? So, the wife "prepares" for her ultrasound. For those of you who don't know, the womb in a woman is above the bladder. You'll hear a lot of pregnant women complain that the baby is kicking them in the bladder. Well, for an ultrasound, they tell the mother to drink 8 32oz. glasses of water before hand so that they come in with a full bladder. This presses the baby and womb forward and makes the ultrasound image better. So, the wife starts drinking and by 3:30 has to pee. Badly. And is letting everyone know it. Her appointment is at 4:30, but she wants to get their early to talk to the Doc. So, we drop the kids off at my mother-in-law's and head to the doctor's office. She's already been holding it in for like 45 minutes and it's not getting easier. When we get to the doctor's office, lo and behold, they tell us that we can't do the ultrasound there. Because of the AFP test, we need to have a high level (Level 2) ultrasound. They can't do one there. And, since the wife's insurance plan only covers so many ultrasounds, they didn't want to waste one of her scans. So, the wife held all that for nothing.

After talking to the doctor, we were more aggrivated than relieved. We were still a little worried, but more pissed off than anything. We basically sat and listened to him tell us that the test is very unreliable and that out of 100 people who are called in with "false positives", about 1% of them actually have a baby with a birth defect. I said before that our risk factor was 1/210. On the web site we went to, they said that almost all doctors consider anything 1/200 and above to be normal. So, we're normal. But there's that little seed of "What if" that got planted and now we're not going to be able to relax until the baby is born in about 5-6 months from now. I don't think I can handle the tension and stress that long. If this had come along without all the job shit happening, then it wouldn't have been so bad. But coming as it did with me losing my job, us losing (technically) our new vehicle and now this. It's almost too much to bear. All I can say is thank goodness for the movie theater. If I wasn't able to go there and decompress for a couple of hours, I'd be a real fuckin' basket case. As it is, I'm barely hanging on.

Well, best go for now and keep looking for a job. I need something to get me outside and get me off my ass. Maybe I should be a garbage man. You think?

Take care.

Da 'Bear

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