Waiting for Tomorrow; or, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fetus

The 24-hours before an ultrasound are always the worst. I start analyzing symptoms in a way that I refuse to let myself do ordinarily. Something new and unexpected always crops up to panic me: a backache that feels a little different than before, boobs that seem slightly smaller (I'm always so fixated on the boobs), a little more energy in the afternoon.

I have trouble sleeping the night before, and the night before that, too. When I wake at 4 or 5 am to pee, I can't fall back asleep again until after it's light. I imagine things I'd probably be better off leaving alone. Or I don't imagine anything at all, but just lie there, queasy and hungry and filled with anxious dread.

I don't understand how this pregnancy could work out when the last one didn't. Logically I can understand: random chance, quirks of genetic combination, blah, blah, blah. But emotionally, I can't comprehend it. Why should this time be any different? How can it be different?

I still feel upset when I read weekly updates on "How Your Baby Is Developing," because they just reinforce for me that I don't know if any of those proclamations--about eyelids and lungs and arm buds--are true. I don't feel closer to this baby when I read them, I feel farther and more distant. More aware that despite carrying it inside me, despite thinking about it every moment of every day, despite eating for it and peeing for it and breathing for it, there's not a single thing I can do to keep it alive or to make it healthy.

I don't like to think of another heart beating away inside me, because then I'm forced to acknowledge that this heart could stop. I don't like to think about a baby growing piece by piece and cell by cell, because it feels too active, too involved, too much of a process, when everything about this right now is passive.

I like to think of the baby as a little candle burning inside me, a tiny flicker of hope that I'm trying to shelter and keep lit. It might blow out--candles do that sometimes--so all I can do is give it space to burn and nurture that hope, whatever may come.

I hope tomorrow is a happy day.