I’ve struggled
with how to find the right words to start this. Everything continues to feel
very surreal.
On Friday we saw
two arms, two legs, a brain and a heartbeat; a fetus, which, according to the book, is what it should be called
now, however painfully clinical that sounds. Little hands, up by it’s mouth,
legs a kicking. Heartbeat of 167. Even as I write this, it still doesn’t feel
real. I came home Friday intending to post – to try to capture that raw emotion
that one feels right after an appointment. But I couldn’t. It still seemed like
a dream[1].
Throughout the
entire thing, as C held my hand and grinned from ear to ear – hi, little baby – I couldn’t stop (wait
for it) laughing. There were tears
streaming down my cheeks but I was also laughing. In fits and starts, and in
that kind of frenetic emotional state where you say out loud what everyone else
can actually see – I’m laughing, I’m
crying – because it’s all just so strange. Because I couldn’t believe this
was actually happening. I just couldn’t believe that we were here. I couldn’t
believe that I had graduated and moved across the hall from fertility clinic to
bona fide OB office[2]. I couldn’t
believe that the waiting room was full of visibly pregnant women – so pregnant
that one was eating a football size burrito[3]
while she waited and another was rubbing her belly and pacing, as though labor
was imminent. I just couldn’t believe it – not any of it, frankly.
In our chat with
the OB afterward, I was still floating. She was primed for my disbelief. When I
began to ask her, so now that we’ve made
it to 11 weeks, what is – she cut me off, the risk of miscarriage? I guess she’s been to this rodeo before. I
could hear C’s deep, I’ve had it up to
hear with your negativity, sigh but he also smiled – I think somehow
content that he can read my mind; he too knew exactly what I was going to ask.
The rest of the
visit is a bit of a blur. We talked about early screening tests, we talked
about my B12 levels, I gave the lecherous nurses about nine pints of my blood,
etc. All very riveting, I know. And then we walked out of there, still, as if
on a cloud.
We have some prenatal
care decisions to make – apparently I’m now a woman who says things like that
<shakes head disapprovingly> – and believe it or not, the life outside my
uterus has also been, in a word, busy.
In addition to fetus arms and legs[4],
the last week has been full of, ahem, milestones
– potential new job and I ate my
first salad in over a month (those two things are totally equal in my book).
So, you know, BIG WEEK HERE tempered
excitement.
[1] Also, let’s be honest, I was starving.
And you know, pregnancy has its priorities… <nom, nom, nom>.
[2] Apparently, I also graduated to a less
invasive form of ultrasound. No more transvaginal wandings for this uterus.
Which is why, as I motioned to the tech if I should like, you know, strip from
the waist down <unbuttoning pants>, she was horrified. Oh, you just want me to pull my shirt up?
C had his palm to his forehead at this point, basically hysterical.
[3] Woman after my own heart, naturally. Of
course, this particular burrito smelled like iceberg lettuce, LETTUCE! – which, I promise you, has a
smell when you’re pregnant – and had my stomach in somersaults. But whatever.
[4] I am aware that the phrase “fetus arms
and legs” sounds totally creepy.
