Ep. 77: Am I a Terrible Mom?

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Laura Birek: Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week we have our weekly check-ins. We have our special segment, OMG I’m Freaking Out, where we get weird feelings and worrisome news and we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let’s get to it.

[Music]

Laura Birek: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. It’s episode 77. Hello, Shanna.

Shanna Micko: Hi.

Laura Birek: Tell us what is going on this week. How old is your baby?

Shanna Micko: She is 11 months and two weeks old, and she started doing something super cute that I have to report on.

Laura Birek: I can’t wait.

Shanna Micko: She has started sharing things with me. It started with her bottle. I’d be holding her, feeding her bottle and she’d look up at me and then take the bottle out of her mouth and try to put it in my mouth and I would pretend to suck on it and she would crack up and she loved it. It’s so funny. That moved on to sharing her food with me. 

So she’ll give me little bites of her food. Yesterday I was feeding her macaroni and cheese. She took one individual mac and cheese noodle, bit it in half between her four little tiny front teeth, ate one half and gave me the other half to eat.

Laura Birek: Come on. That’s so cute.

Shanna Micko: So stinking cute. I just love this age. She’s just so fun. My God, I’m just falling in love with her more every day.

Laura Birek: That’s so sweet. She just really wants to share. She doesn’t really understand that you could just have your own noodle. She’s like, okay, I’m going to bite this little one in half, half for me, half for mommy. Just so sweet.

Shanna Micko: It’s so sweet. I could tell she prefers to put it straight into my mouth. If I hold out my hand, that’s not the preferred method of deliverance. I have to open my mouth. She puts it in and she just giggles in delight when I chomp it up and she knows that. Toys too. Now she realizes she can hand over a toy and she doesn’t really give it to me a lot. I don’t think she wants to give me the toy. I try to take it and then she takes it back. But I think she likes the act of knowing that she can do it.

Laura Birek: She doesn’t actually want to share the toy, but she just wants to demonstrate that she could if she wanted to.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, exactly.

Laura Birek: Is there ever a point where you’re like, I don’t want to put that in my mouth with her shared food?

Shanna Micko: Who? Me?

Laura Birek: Yeah.

Shanna Micko: Like I don’t want to put that in my mouth?

Laura Birek: Well, not the toys, but the shared food. It’s like, that’s okay, baby. Why don’t you keep that all to yourself?

Shanna Micko: Oh, yeah. Definitely. There’s some. If it’s really mushed up or it’s been on her dirty hands or whatever.

Laura Birek: How do you fake it? Do you fake it or do you just like say, thank you?

Shanna Micko: No, I just take it and be like, “Thank you.” Then she’s distracted and then I’ll set it somewhere next to me.

Laura Birek: A magic trick.

Shanna Micko: You got to do what you got to do.

Laura Birek: I have to say that before I had kids, I would go over to my friends’ houses with kids and I’d see them eating their babies’ leftovers and I’d be like, I don’t know if that’s something I ever do and now I am fully that person. Like, there’s a little hummus left. I’m going to eat that. You’re like, you didn’t eat all your mac and cheese. I’m going to finish that. That’s wasted food.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, especially those little treats like mac and cheese that I don’t really make myself anymore, but if it’s on the kids’ plate, it’s like, hmm. I don’t eat the kids’ leftovers as much as Steve does. Elle doesn’t have to be gone from the table by two seconds and Steve’s like, “Chicken nuggets, blah, blah, blah.” I’m like, “Honey, she’s so fickle. She might be hungry again in a minute.” He’s like, “Calm down, woman.”

Laura Birek: Free pass. That’s awesome.

Shanna Micko: Yes, so that’s the fun stuff about this week. We had a little accident the other day that was so stressful for me.

Laura Birek: Oh, no.

Shanna Micko: We were in the bathroom and I was filling up her tub and she was standing there looking at the water and she is fascinated by the water coming out of the spout. 

So she’s leaning over, trying to touch it and stuff. I feel like a horrible mom, of course, because I turned my back for a second, because I got a text and I just looked at it quickly on the bathroom counter and I hear, boom. I assume she fell, because I didn’t see anything. I turn around and she’s on the bathroom floor screaming and I’m like, oh my gosh. I pick her up and I’m holding her comforting her and then I see all this blood dripping out of her mouth.

Laura Birek: No.

Shanna Micko: Yes, she’s crying and so I’m looking in her mouth and it’s just pooling up like blood. I was like, oh my gosh. Getting on her clothes. You just kind of panic in those moments where, what do you do? I don’t even know what I did. Got a towel or tissue and just kind of tried to wipe it up and she wasn’t calming down.

Laura Birek: Could you see where it was coming from? What happened?

Shanna Micko: No, I have no idea. I couldn’t tell if she bit her lip or cut her cheek or what. I couldn’t see an oie of any sort.

Laura Birek: It’s not easy exactly to take a peek around a baby’s mouth when they’re screaming and upset. Oh, no. Poor baby. So did the bleeding stop pretty quickly at least?

Shanna Micko: It was going on for a little while and I was panicking and luckily my mother-in-law was home and so I was like, “Chris, can you help me, please? She fell.” She’s so great. 

She was so calm and like, “Okay, let’s get her something cold to chew on.” So we got those little chewy things that was your BFP one time you put stuff like frozen breast milk in it.

Laura Birek: The little silicone food pacifiers basically.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, I went and got cold strawberries or raspberries or something and put them in there and let her chomp on that and she really enjoyed that. She calmed down and finally it stopped bleeding, but she had blood all over her shirt and I think it was definitely just looked and seemed scarier than it actually was.

Laura Birek: That is scary, especially, because you don’t know how bad it is, especially if the bleeding’s happening. I’m always worried about my baby biting his tongue. He’s not walking yet, but he’s cruising and he’s a little unstable and he’ll occasionally sort of take a harder fall and he walks around with his little tongue between his teeth. He has seven teeth and they’re sharp teeth. So it’s only a matter of time I feel like before something like that happens.

Shanna Micko: I think that’s what happened.

Laura Birek: I know you probably feel like an awful mom, but you are allowed to turn your back for one second. We all have to. Shit happens basically. But yeah, that’s scary.

Shanna Micko: It was scary, but she did recover.

Laura Birek: I’m sure she doesn’t even know what happened now. It’s not even in her memory at this point. Or maybe if it is, it’s a long distant memory.

Shanna Micko: It was a distant memory by the time she went to bed that night, I think. I gave her some Tylenol just in case it was hurting her and she was fine next morning. I kept trying to look in there to see what’s going on. I just couldn’t see anything. It was a mystery to me. But yeah, hearing a bang and then seeing your baby bleeding is so, ugh. I don’t like that.

Laura Birek: That sucks. What always worries me about those sort of accidents that happen is that I worry that they’re then going to associate their surroundings with the accident. But she wasn’t worried about being in the bathroom after that or anything?

Shanna Micko: No, she wasn’t. It was fine after that, thank goodness. So it wasn’t so traumatizing for her that it made a lasting impact.

Laura Birek: Good. Okay. Well, I’m glad she’s bounced back.

Shanna Micko: Yes, me too. Other than that, things are going fine. I’m just moving along on my first birthday party prep, got all my cake making some supplies and decorations and I’m getting excited about it.

Laura Birek: I’m getting excited about it. I got to figure out what rainbow colored thing to wear.

Shanna Micko: I’m excited to see. So that’s all with me. What about you? How old’s your baby?

Laura Birek: He’s 10 months, two weeks and ugh, we had a shitty week.

Shanna Micko: No, why?

Laura Birek: So he came down with a massive fever. Just out of the blue he spiked 102 fever. It was Saturday evening and he had like 102-ish. I think the highest it got was like 102.6 for two days. It would go down when we’d give him ibuprofen or Tylenol and we were alternating ibuprofen and Tylenol around the clock basically and it would go down to 199 down low enough that you don’t have to rush him into the hospital. But it would bounce right back up and he didn’t really have any other symptoms, which I thought was interesting. It was just a fever. So I don’t know what was going on, but he was so sad. Fevers make you feel terrible and there was one night where his fever was really high and we had done a cool bath and we were trying to like make it calm and he just would not go down for the night. You could just tell. You can tell the difference between a protest cry, like, I don’t want to be in this crib versus I am in pain cry. I could just tell. So I didn’t let him cry very long. I just scooped him up and I was trying to rock him. I was trying to boob him. I was trying to do all that and none of it was working. So finally I took a play out of my mom’s playbook and I brought him out to the living room and turned on Sesame Street.

Shanna Micko: There you go.

Laura Birek: It totally worked. Poor little guy. I have a picture. I should post it on Insta. It’s him in his little sleep sack with his eyes all wet from crying just looking all sad, but then being completely entranced by Sesame Street. He’s so sad. But the good news is that it lasted like two, maybe three days and then it was over and he was fine.

Shanna Micko: So bizarre. So you have no idea what it was? It’s probably some little virus of sorts.

Laura Birek: My mom thought it might be roseola. I think it was. That is a really common fever that kids get in their first year or first two years, but it usually is accompanied by a rash. You get the fever and then you get a rash and he never got a rash. So I don’t know, but it was pretty miserable. I am so grateful for Tylenol and Ibuprofen.

Shanna Micko: Definitely.

Laura Birek: Anyway, now he’s like, nothing ever happened and he’s fine and I’m just traumatized.

Shanna Micko: This is a dramatic week. Was he Jones Earl from Elmo and Ernie now?

Laura Birek: Not really. He’s always been fascinated by screens, I think, because we look at them. He does this thing, I think I’ve mentioned it, where if he wants something he like holds his hand out and he goes, “Eh, eh.” 

He doesn’t do that at the TV ever. You can turn the TV on and his head’s on a swivel and he just goes straight to it, but he doesn’t point at the TV and ask for it. So hopefully we’re not creating a habit. But if you recall last week my BFN was blood draws, because we had to go in and get his iron and lead levels checked and I’m here to report that his iron level is 11, which is the low end of normal which is good.

Shanna Micko: Yay. We did it.

Laura Birek: The doctor said she wants to do another heel prick or toe prick test, like simpler in-office test they can do at the 12 month appointment just to make sure that it’s still going up. But she thinks it should be okay.

Shanna Micko: Good.

Laura Birek: The lead was nonexistent, so that’s good. Being in an old house hasn’t ruined his brain.

Shanna Micko: Yay.

Laura Birek: So that’s good. Those are the medical updates this week. The personality updates are this kid has opinions about everything.

Shanna Micko: Oh, good.

Laura Birek: It’s good. I want to have an opinionated child, but I find myself thinking about those four to five month days where you’re just like, you could put them on a changing table and they maybe wiggled a little bit. But you could change their diaper in like less than five minutes, which is what it takes now, because he’s gotten that twist move down and I like to think I’m fairly strong. I almost cannot keep him on his back and if I really wanted to do it, I’d have to be really manhandling him. So it’s a lot. I’m trying to be all respectful and use the RIE method and be like, “Honey, I see you don’t want to be on this changing table, but we all have to keep our bodies clean.” He’s just like, what the fuck are you talking about? I want to get down on the floor and run around naked, crawl around naked. So diaper changes and clothing changes are a struggle, but also he just doesn’t want to hang out in his yes space.

Shanna Micko: Right.

Laura Birek: What he wants to do is crawl around and dismantle the whole house.

Shanna Micko: Oh, gosh.

Laura Birek: His favorite thing right now is taking things that are in a container out of the container. I think I have a video of this actually too, where he crawls over to this little box we have that’s full of burp cloth and bibs and stuff actually we don’t really use that much anymore, because he’s really sort of beyond the spit up phase. But those little triangle cloth bibs and stuff that we used to put on them all the time and they’re just sitting there and they’re all nicely folded and he crawls over and then pulls to stand on it and just systematically takes every single one out and he just wants to do that with everything. Take the books out of the bookshelves and take the DVDs out of our DVD cabinet. I just kind of let him for the most part at this point, because by the end of the day I’m worn down totally. I don’t want to fight him in the yes space. You know what I mean? I’m sure there are people out there who be like, you got to make your kid not have their way all the time or whatever. But by the end of the day I’m just like, all right. If you want to crawl around the whole freaking house and do things that are safe but destructive. Not permanently destructive, just messy. I’m not going to get in your way.

Shanna Micko: Oh, yeah. You’ve got to concede sometimes for your own sanity. I do that all the time.

Laura Birek: He loves it. He’s in the yes space, like I don’t want to be here. I pick him up, move him what’s the equivalent of three inches just on the other side of the baby gate and he’s just like cool. He just is off running.

Shanna Micko: Doesn’t want to be contained.

Laura Birek: He doesn’t. I love seeing his personality come out and I think it’s really funny and don’t get me wrong. It’s a real whiplash from a little baby who you carry around and does whatever you want to nearly a toddler who’s just like, I have opinions about everything.

Shanna Micko: Man, it’s only going to get stronger too.

Laura Birek: I know. This is what scares me. Anyway, it’s what I signed up for and the good makes up for the frustrating for sure, because he’s just interacting more and he also just shows affection more, like we talked about the sloppy baby kisses. He’s just way more interactive. So that’s a fair trade for this, but it does exhaust you when you’re home all day with them. I’ll have a babysitter come every once in a while basically. It’s a lot. By the end of the day you’re like, woo. There’s a lot of managing another person and their strong opinions.

Shanna Micko: Definitely. That makes me realize I never updated you and the listeners on my yes space, because I did away with kind of the enclosed yes space a long time ago.

Laura Birek: Oh, really?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, because I work at home and I spend all day with the baby too and she wanted to go beyond it as well and so I took it down and kind of have made my entire living/dining room a yes space for her. Basically, I put a couple of those gates around the fireplace and put a gate around the kitchens, the dogs can stay in there and I just don’t have interesting stuff down where she can reach it. I just got a new bookcase for my living room and there’s just no books on it. I haven’t done anything with it yet, because I know she’ll just destroy it. But more or less she can crawl around and check stuff out without me having to be on her all the time and that is my only saving grace for how I’m able to manage working and being home with her all day so I don’t have to redirect her constantly. It’s just so frustrating.

Laura Birek: I need to figure out a way to do that in my house. The problem is that my house is small first of all and you would think that would be a good thing, but it’s not, because the kitchen’s right there. There’s no real way to block off the kitchen. So then I have to baby proof the kitchen, which is fine, but then I have to baby proof the cat food. How do I make it so the cats can get in?

Shanna Micko: Right.

Laura Birek: To be fair, they have shown that they are very good at jumping over the yes space gates. So I think that’ll be fine. But also the litter box, I have an old cat and I don’t want to do anything to discourage him from getting to the litter box.

Shanna Micko: Definitely.

Laura Birek: It’s just a whole thing.

Shanna Micko: It’s complicated.

Laura Birek: It is.

Shanna Micko: Hopefully, he’ll grow out of it soon. Not the cat. The baby will not be so much of a tornado in the living room soon, because he’s just going to get older.

Laura Birek: And be actually respectful of his mother.

Shanna Micko: Yes, exactly. Just give it another couple weeks.

Laura Birek: Okay. I’ll hang in there. So how I feel like you’re lying to me, but should we take a break and come back with our special segment?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, let’s do it.

Laura Birek: Okay.

[Music]

Shanna Micko: We’re back and we have this week’s special segment, OMG I’m Freaking Out, where we talk about things we’ve been well freaking out about lately with our kids. Laura, what you got?

Laura Birek: Actually, freaking out about this. It’s bizarre. So the other day I was doing my normal daily chasing the baby around and that involves a lot of standing up and sitting down and leaning over and then you’re wrestling a baby who doesn’t want to be on the changing table. So I feel like it involves a lot of core work. Anyway, one of these days I was on the ground with the baby and I was sitting there and all of a sudden I felt a thump in my abdomen that felt exactly like a baby kick.

Shanna Micko: What?

Laura Birek: Exactly. Then I put my hand on it and I could feel it externally, like thump, thump, thump. I could feel it and then it kept happening and I was like, what the fuck is happening? So Corey came home and I was like, “Do you feel that?” He could feel it.

Shanna Micko: Was it psychosomatic?

Laura Birek: It was not psychosomatic. It was real and he was like, “What does that mean?” I was like, “Well…” I am still nursing, which is not birth control, by the way. For anyone who thinks that, it’s apparently not real birth control. But I knew that, so I went and got a freaking Mirena. I think I was like three months postpartum when I got a Mirena and I’m now 10 months postpartum. So the math could work out.

Shanna Micko: Oh my God.

Laura Birek: But here’s another thing. Other than the fact that I’m nursing and I have a very effective IUD, I took some pregnancy tests and they’re all negative.

Shanna Micko: Okay.

Laura Birek: So I am having, and by the way, this has been continuing, I guess either like phantom kicks but since Corey can feel them, they’re not phantom. But I’m getting stomach cramps that feel exactly like a baby kicking and it’s messing with my brain.

Shanna Micko: Oh, wow. I think it’s your body’s way of saying that it’s ready for another baby.

Laura Birek: I have to say that my reaction to having the kicks was well, that would solve that problem. I wouldn’t have to make a decision. I have been drinking and doing all kinds of stuff. Not all kinds of stuff, but eating salami and all this stuff you’re not really supposed to do when pregnant. So it’s not ideal. But my knee jerk reaction was like, that answers that question. I could just have that baby and then I wouldn’t have to worry about having a discussion and deciding whether it fits into our lives.

Shanna Micko: But that is the benefit of actually getting knocked up. It’s like, all right.

Laura Birek: Then I continued to Google, “Can pregnancy tests be negative,” because it kept happening, Shanna?

Shanna Micko: What in the world?

Laura Birek: So it turns out there is a way that pregnancy tests can be negative. It’s called the hook effect where you have too much pregnancy hormone in your urine that it basically maxes out. The test is just like cannot compute and doesn’t work, but you can get around that by diluting your urine and then seeing if you get a positive.

Shanna Micko: Did you dilute it?

Laura Birek: I diluted it. I’m sitting here having these weird ass kick feelings in my stomach and I’m like, I got to make sure that we’re 100% certain on this.

Shanna Micko: How old would the fetus have to be to feel the kicks? I think I was feeling them around 18 weeks or so.

Laura Birek: According to my little chart here, my baby is 45 weeks. So that’s plenty.

Shanna Micko: That’s definitely plausible.

Laura Birek: There’s no such thing as 100% effective birth control. It’s possible. It’s not plausible. It’s extremely unlikely and thankfully I haven’t lost my mind so much that I’ve gone to the doctor. I figure if they really continue and I feel other kind of movement, I think the reason why I think I’m not so convinced by them is that they tend to be happening in the same spot over and over. So I think it’s like a cramp, like a twitch. You know when you get like a twitching muscle.

Shanna Micko: Yes, that’s what it is.

Laura Birek: Yeah, I think that, because I’m doing so much unsupported ab work basically, like picking the baby up and lugging him around that is affecting it.

Shanna Micko: But it is in the uterus area. It’s not up in the stomach in the ab muscles.

Laura Birek: It’s in the ab area, but it’s exactly where I would get kicks when I was in my third trimester, especially, because he was breach. It’s right there. I do wonder if my ab muscles have gotten injured or something from the being pregnant, not injured necessarily, but stretched in a different way and so they react differently. Maybe that’s why like that spot is getting it, but it’s uncanny. I do not wish this on anyone.

Shanna Micko: Have you googled this? Are other people experiencing this?

Laura Birek: I have not Googled it. Let’s see. I’m going to Google. Oh, okay. Here’s one: BabyCenter. I love BabyCenter and it’s always got the best.

Shanna Micko: So good.

Laura Birek: Someone in 2013 asked. The title of it is, “Seeing and feeling movement in my stomach, but not pregnant.” Becky Banta7075 says, “Recently, I started feeling movement in my stomach and I thought it was gas, but then I put my hand on it and I could feel something hit my hand and I washed it for a minute and I could see movements on the outside of my stomach as well. My tubes are tied after having three children, so there is no way I’m pregnant. Could anyone have any ideas? Kind of creeping me out?” Okay, hold on. Let’s see. Best answer. Someone said, “I have had this problem about a year ago. I took six pregnancy tests. They were all came out negative. Said it was gas, blah, blah, blah. A couple months later my tummy starts to actually show more and as the weeks pass I went to the doctor and they did an ultrasound and there was a beautiful baby girl.” That’s not what I want to read. Other people say it’s gas. I want a follow-up from the original poster. Let me see if I can find it, because there’s profiles so we can see. She asks this in September, 2013. Let’s see if she has a little profile where she says how many babies she’s had.

Shanna Micko: This is good detective work, Laura.

Laura Birek: Oh, yeah. Let’s see. I can see if she’s in a birth club or something. She’s only in Cooking For Your Family. I feel like she would have updated.

Shanna Micko: Or maybe she was just so devastated that she couldn’t update. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be scaring you.

Laura Birek: I don’t want to go to my doctor and be like, hey, doctor. I’ve taken a bunch of pregnancy tests. I have a Mirena. He’s so sweet. He probably would just do the ultrasound for me. I feel like there’s a line between healthy concern about your body and full blown hypochondria and I don’t want to cross that line.

Shanna Micko: But it is disconcerting, especially, because that’s a feeling that you don’t get very much in life and it’s so distinct and you only really know it once you feel it what it’s like to have a baby kick inside of you.

Laura Birek: It’s so distinct. She updated. “I took three tests. They were negative. I had an ultrasound. They found nothing. So maybe it was gas. I have no idea what’s going on. They even had me test me for parasites and tape worms. Everything was negative.” She definitely has an alien in her belly.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, you do too.

Laura Birek: I do not. Why are you wishing? Again, I know my knee jerks that’ll be fun. But also, I haven’t had any prenatal care. I wouldn’t be ideal and there was also a Mirena in there. I don’t know if that messes things up. My mom says that in the old days when they first started using IUDs, babies would be born holding the IUDs. I think that might be an old wives tale.

Shanna Micko: It must be. That’s a really funny thought though. If you are pregnant, Laura, though. Think about it. You skipped an entire first trimester of nausea, morning sickness, all that.

Laura Birek: Shanna, do you remember I had that mystery food poisoning like a month ago?

Shanna Micko: Shit.

Laura Birek: That wouldn’t be quite first trimester, but I didn’t know what it was about remember. I was puking and I was just like, I don’t know what I ate. No one else is sick.

Shanna Micko: Laura…

Laura Birek: Shanna!

Shanna Micko: This will be really good for the podcast though if you got pregnant again.

Laura Birek: It’s the main reason to get pregnant again for sure. Anyway, if it continues, I will update everyone. I do love that show: I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. You watch that and you’re like, how could anyone…

Shanna Micko: You could be on it.

Laura Birek: Producers call me up. Shanna, I really don’t think it’s stomach cramps.

Shanna Micko: All right.

Laura Birek: Let’s take my mind off of this for now.

Shanna Micko: Okay.

Laura Birek: We’ll keep you updated. What are you freaking out about?

Shanna Micko: Remember how when CeCe was a newborn, she cried all the time and screamed and had what I thought was stomach pain and reflux. So I got her on baby Zantac and I was so happy about it and it helped. I got a letter in the mail the other day saying that baby Zantac has been recalled and she was on it for like a good five months before I got this letter. So it has an impurity called N-Nitrosodimethylamine, NDMA.

Laura Birek: It’s MDMA. But NDMA.

Shanna Micko: MDMA would’ve had an immediate impact on my baby’s behavior. Maybe she would’ve been more cuddly. So it’s an impurity known to cause cancer and apparently it was in Ranitidine Zantac in higher doses than the FDA approves. That’s not a fun letter to get in the mail as a mom.

Laura Birek: It’s not.

Shanna Micko: I can’t do anything about it now.

Laura Birek: I took Ranitidine all throughout pregnancy, if you recall. My doctor told me to take it two or three times. I could take it around the clock, because I had such bad heartburn. So I have a little news for you on this, which I think might make you feel better which is how I went and got that upper endoscopy like a month ago or whatever and I talked to the doctor about that and we were talking about Ranitidine recall and it’s an abundance of caution. So did you read about what happened?

Shanna Micko: No.

Laura Birek: Let me tell you. So what happened was there’s this independent pharmacy I can’t remember the name that does their own testing on drugs. They started testing drugs and discovered that there was a lot more of the NDMA in the Ranitidine than they expected.

Shanna Micko: Oh, okay.

Laura Birek: It’s one of those things where it’s shown to cause cancer but in really high quantities and they’re not that much found in small quantities and it also was found in older batches like ones that had been on the shelf longer, for example.

Shanna Micko: Interesting.

Laura Birek: So they don’t know if it’s really in all of the Ranitidine. They don’t know if it’s just in some of it or if it’s just in old ones. The FDA actually didn’t want to do a recall. It was a voluntary recall by the companies. I think CVS started it actually. CVS said they were going to get rid of it on their shelves and it’s definitely a letter you don’t want to get. I definitely was like, what the fuck? I took this throughout pregnancy. What the hell? But it’s not like time to panic as far as I know.

Shanna Micko: Okay.

Laura Birek: Because also she was taking liquid Ranitidine. So that probably was fresher.

Shanna Micko: True.

Laura Birek: So it’s less likely and it sucks and you can’t get it anymore. It’s out everywhere. It’s interesting you just can’t buy it anymore. But the other cool thing is that they got rid of it, because there are other drugs that work just as well in the same class. So they’re like, it doesn’t matter. My GI doctor said like, “Don’t panic. Just take the Pepcid instead.”

Shanna Micko: So Pepcid is a good substitute.

Laura Birek: It is.

Shanna Micko: Not that she needs it anymore.

Laura Birek: No.

Shanna Micko: I was popping Zantac here and there, so I guess I’ll do Pepcid now.

Laura Birek: It sucks, but they’re pulling it out of abundance of caution. Here’s another thing, my stepmother who is a pharmacist is still taking hers, because she doesn’t think it’s a big deal. She has a stash of it and she’s still taking it every day.

Shanna Micko: Okay. Good to know. That does make me feel better.

Laura Birek: Good. But so you actually got a letter?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, I got a letter from Rite Aid corporate.

Laura Birek: See the FDA isn’t really taking action as far as I know. It’s all the pharmacies. They just don’t want to deal with it.

Shanna Micko: I see. That makes sense. That makes me feel better and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m glad I had it when I did, because it did help a lot. So that’s good.

Laura Birek: She really did seem to need it.

Shanna Micko: I think so.

Laura Birek: Very slim chances anything was wrong with it as far as I know.

Shanna Micko: Well, thank you Laura for reassuring me. I appreciate it. Should we take a break and move on to our BFPs and BFNs? 

Laura Birek: I think we should.

[Music]

Laura Birek: We’re back. So we close every episode with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. Shanna, do you have a BFP or a BFN for us?

Shanna Micko: I have a BFP.

Laura Birek: Yay.

Shanna Micko: Part of it is that I got that bookcase I was mentioning to you to decorate my living room.

Laura Birek: Nice.

Shanna Micko: I moved in a couple years ago and just been hella busy with IVF, being pregnant, rearing a newborn, all that stuff to really think about how to kind of put finishing touches in my house.

Laura Birek: Not to mention working full-time, raising your other child.

Shanna Micko: Yes, exactly. But I really do love thinking about all that stuff and I’m trying to make my home feel more cozy and lived in. So I got a nice little bookcase from Cost Plus World Market.

Laura Birek: Love Cost Plus.

Shanna Micko: I know. Me too. I put it in the living room and like I mentioned earlier, CeCe explores the whole living room now while I work. She’s not contained to her yes space and so I was very worried about this thing tipping over on her, because it’s looks climbable. It’s like 80 pounds. Really heavy. So I wanted to anchor it to the wall and I had to find the right solution for this bookcase, because it’s an open back bookcase. You can see the wall behind it.

Laura Birek: Oh, yeah. Okay.

Shanna Micko: So I didn’t want anything that you could really see and I had some furniture straps that you are supposed to drill on top of your furniture and then drill into the wall, but I didn’t want that either, because it’s a low bookcase. You can see the top of it. So I spent a lot of time finding the right solution and it exists and I’m really excited about this and I think these would be good for actually any kind of like dresser. I might do it to the girls’ dressers in their room. This is the ridiculous name on Amazon: Furniture Straps (10-Pack) Baby Proofing Anti-tip Furniture Anchors, Kit Cabinet, Wall Anchors: protect toddler, pet from falling. Furniture adjustable child safety strap, earthquake resistant. It’s really just a name where they just jam in all the keywords soup. So I couldn’t really tell you what brand it is or anything, but we could link it in the show notes.

Laura Birek: We’ll have to do that.

Shanna Micko: But it’s cool. It’s just these little very strong plastic little hooks that you screw into the wall and then you can screw one into your furniture in the back behind so you don’t see it. Then there’s a zip tie that you put through the hole of one of the things and through the other and then zip tie it tight. So it’s like basically zip tied to the wall in a couple different places.

Laura Birek: Interesting.

Shanna Micko: I like it because it’s hidden and I like it because it’s not going to tip at all. These furniture straps I don’t really understand, because if you have like four or five inches of slack and something tips, all the shit on the shelves would fall on your kid.

Laura Birek: They sure do.

Shanna Micko: So I don’t get that and this prevents that. I’m really happy with this totally weird random keyword infused purchase that I made.

Laura Birek: I need to get those, because I have a couple things I haven’t anchored yet. Corey and I don’t really fight, but we got in a terse conversation about it once, because I had asked him to anchor all the furniture before the baby came. He anchored his TV definitely the first move and a few other things but just didn’t happen and I get it. We were very busy and life happens. But it was super weird. I got into this terse discussion with him about it and then the next day there was an earthquake. Do you remember those earthquakes a few months ago?

Shanna Micko: Oh, yeah.

Laura Birek: It was so small where we were at. It didn’t matter, but it definitely made me think like, I’d better get this stuff anchored. That was a couple months ago. Do you know what I haven’t done? Anchored all of my furniture. So this is a great reminder. Thank you. I need to do that and you have to send me the link. I’ll put it in the show notes and then I will also be able to order it for myself.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, do. They’re super easy to use. I did it myself. I didn’t even need a man to do it.

Laura Birek: What?

Shanna Micko: Do I have to mention the fact that I could do it myself?

Laura Birek: No, but I think part of the reason I haven’t done it is because the ones I have are what you described. They’re these straps that you screw the anchors into the wall, which is fine. I can handle that, but then you have to find a spot on the furniture to screw them in that’s not going to destroy the furniture. It’s very confusing and I was just going to hire a handy person to do it. With yours, I feel like I can just do it myself.

Shanna Micko: I think so. Give us an update once you try it.

Laura Birek: I will.

Shanna Micko: Okay. So that’s mine. Laura, what do you got?

Laura Birek: So I have a BFP and it is club sandwiches.

Shanna Micko: Oh, God.

Laura Birek: Hear me out. We all, well, not all. I’m sure that there are lots of people who don’t like club sandwiches, but it is a pretty widely loved sandwich type. But I’m specifically BFPing it because it turns out it is the perfect meal to share with your baby. I have discovered that around the corner from my house is a little grocery store called Bristol Farms. It’s smaller, even a little bit fancier than Whole Foods. It’s like, boutique groceries or whatever. Anyway, they have a little cafe that’s attached to it and they have, I think it’s called Newport Beach Yacht Club Sandwich or something. It’s something really stupid. It’s something very pretentious, but it’s just a fucking club sandwich.

Shanna Micko: For those who might not know what club sandwich is, what all is on it, because I don’t know I know for sure.

Laura Birek: So I actually was wikipediang it, because I want to make sure that my understanding of a club sandwich was the same as everyone else’s.

Shanna Micko: I think Turkey and bacon for sure.

Laura Birek: Yeah, according to Wikipedia, “A club sandwich also called a clubhouse sandwich is a sandwich of bread, traditionally toasted, sliced cooked poultry.” For me, it’s usually Turkey. “Ham and fried bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise.” But for me, at least the one at this place also has avocado and cheese.

Shanna Micko: Avocado of course, because it’s California.

Laura Birek: Yeah, but it’s so much good stuff in one sandwich and it’s also a double layer of four pieces of bread.

Shanna Micko: Right. That’s a toast.

Laura Birek: Then they cut it into quarters. So I will go to this place and get a club sandwich with a side of fruit and go to the park with the baby and I’ll have two of the sandwich or two or three quarters of the sandwich and I’ll give him the other one. I’ll just take it apart and then he’s got tomatoes, Turkey, avocado, cheese and he is totally happy.

Shanna Micko: I noticed you didn’t give him the bacon. You took that for yourself.

Laura Birek: I did take the bacon for myself. It’s a choking hazard. That’s what I’m going with it.

Shanna Micko: Dangerous, dangerous bacon.

Laura Birek: I did give him a little piece. He actually doesn’t seem to care much for bacon, which I find fascinating.

Shanna Micko: That is fascinating.

Laura Birek: So I highly recommend picking up a club sandwich on your way to the park. It’s not the easiest to sit at a park and try to feed a baby without him crawling away, but we make it work.

Shanna Micko: Sounds like a nice full balanced meal for energy.

Laura Birek: You got a veggie, you got a protein, you got some cheese. It’s also a protein. What else? Then the side of fruit really brings it all together.

Shanna Micko: I’m going to club sandwich picnicking with you guys.

Laura Birek: Let’s do it. I want to do that. We’ll have to put it in the books. 

All right. Well, I think that’s our show. That’s our show. If you guys have anything you’re freaking out about this week, let us know.

Shanna Micko: We love hearing from you. Laura, where can they reach us?

Laura Birek: We’re on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at BFP Podcast. We also have a Facebook community group. It’s a closed group. Just search Big Fat Positive community, request to join and I will add you. You can also email us: [email protected] or visit our website: bigfatpositivepodcast.com.

Shanna Micko: If you love our show, please review and rate us wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps other people find the show and we appreciate it so much. Big Fat Positive is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko and Steve Yager. Bye.

Laura Birek: Thanks for listening. Bye.

[Music]