Big Days; or V-Days

First of all, I need to shout a little bit in honor of VIABILITY DAY!!! 24 weeks! Yeah, baby!!

Now Smudgie, this is by no means an invitation for you to come out and join us just yet. Aside from the fact that we're not at all ready for you (and you don't want to sleep in a shoe box, do you?), you're not ready for the world yet. You need to stay in there and get nice and chubby and build up your lungs and learn all sorts of new tricks before you're ready to come out. I don't care how many times you kick my cervix, my stance on this is not changing.

With V-day upon us, it's time that I faced up to a few things: a) there very well might be a baby on the way in roughly 3.5 months, and b) we need to step up our efforts to get ready for him or her, regardless of how scared we might feel.

That being said, it's time for an update on out progress in the potential nursery. If you recall the last time I updated on the room, things were looking dire. Well as of this afternoon, the room looks like this. Brace yourselves:


On the off chance this image leaves you feeling less than impressed, I must point out that it took us three weeks to: try to sell the desk and twin bed on craigslist; realize that people are too afraid of bedbugs to buy things on craigslist anymore; call around to a bunch of charities in the city; realize that nobody wants FREE donated furniture either; call a moving company; have them haul the stuff out of here and to the Salvation Army; learn that the Salvation Army has higher standards than one would assume; have the movers dump it all.

So we wound up paying to have perfectly good furniture thrown away, which offends whatever frugal parts of my soul lurk deep within. But what else could we do?

Bella is mildly traumatized by the ordeal of watching her bed and favorite chair (in the living room) be carried out never to return. I'm mildly traumatized by the fact that the prospective doula we were supposed to meet with last night never showed up and still hasn't contacted us. But these are subjects for a less momentous Friday.

And for anyone who is interested: fresh belly pics await.

Happy Days; or, Ten Fingers and Ten Toes (Plus a Lot of Other Body Parts)

Yesterday was one of my best days ever!

It started with Part 1 of our anatomy scan (at 16w3d). I was anxious beforehand, as was Lawyer Guy, but we both did a good job of keeping busy over the weekend and keeping our mind off the fear--and everything turned out great. Smudgie looks perfect: we saw the brain, four-chambered heart beating away, the spine and stomach and bladder and kidneys (two of them, phew!). We saw veins in different parts of his or her body. The tech counted fingers and toes and measured arm and leg bones. Everything you can see at this point looked good.

I had the follow-up bloodwork for the sequential screening, but the OB we met with yesterday feel confident that the results are going to be good. We scheduled Part 2 of the anatomy scan for 21 weeks exactly, 4.5 weeks away. I did NOT schedule an intermediate peace-of-mind scan. I'm going to try to make it the entire month this time (and hope that I start to feel some reassuring movement in the meantime). And I learned that I've only gained a pound in the last three weeks, so the run-away weight gain of the first tri appears to be settling now that I'm eating more fruits, veggies, and proteins. Hooray! Happy happy all around!!

At this point, we finally feel comfortable going public. We're letting our parents tell friends and extended family, we're telling far-off friends, I'm telling people at school. It's very scary to take this plunge, but I think it's time. As Doctor Lady said when I saw her last week, statistically, our odds are as good at this point as they will be at any point. And I've got to start coming clean eventually, right? We are still keeping mum on Facebook, though.

(And speaking of Doctor Lady: thank you for your support on my last post. As I suspected, I just needed some time to process the news. She came into town for Easter week and it was amazing to see her and to talk about this experience with her. I am truly excited now that we get to share this time after all these years of waiting).

After the scan, my happy day continued! LG had to head to work, so I grabbed a healthy, yummy lunch and hit the streets for a favorite, and long-neglected, activity: Shopping!!!

I stopped off at lululemon and picked up some yoga leggings and looser work-out tops and a bigger sports bra to last the rest of the pregnancy. I've heard such good things about how comfortable their clothes are throughout pregnancy, that I decided it was worth the investment. And as a plus, I can continue to wear these clothes postpartum (fingers crossed) and after.

I also stumbled into a crazy 80% off warehouse sale at one of my favorite chi-chi stores on the Upper East Side. And this sale was FULL of loose, drapey, light, cotton and linen and jersey summer dresses and tops! I bought a whole bunch that I can belt under the boobs and wear in the summer, and then have taken in a little afterward to continue to wear once the pregnancy is over. I love it! Other than some maternity bras, a pair of maternity jeans, and a few stretchy shirts and camisoles (all of which I still need to pick up), I've got all the basics for an awesome pregnant-wardrobe and I haven't stepped foot in a maternity store!

I also picked up two little things for Smudgie. One is a gray Primp thermal onesie with panda bears on it that I got at the warehouse sale. The other was a pair of cotton footie pajamas with little grey designs all over them that I got at my favorite French children's clothing store, jacadi.

(Yes, I have a favorite French children's clothing store. Yes, I am a New Yorker. Yes, I am crazy.)

I almost cried when I bought those pajamas. I have gone into that store so many times over the last few years and touched all the little cotton clothes and the little shoes and wondered when it will be my turn to get something. Buying that little item felt so special and important (even if I haven't cut the tags off, nor will for a very long time).

I feel good about buying those little things. They're easily stashed and stored and easily ignored should something go wrong (as I learned with the m&m--we've had two onesies in a desk drawer for 18 months now). It's not like buying a stroller or a crib or a rug, none of which I'm even close to doing yet. But these purchases felt like purposeful statements of hope, rather than blind optimism. And that's a place I'm okay being in for the moment.

One last thing to say before I return to my reading. We could have found out Smudgie's sex today, but we have decided to keep it a mystery until the birth.

(For which LG should be eternally grateful, because I swear, if I had just found out the sex and then walked into jacadi, there would have been a consumer binge the likes of which has not been seen since Vivian Ward discovered Rodeo Drive.)

People keep asking how I have the willpower to resist finding out--and my MIL has threatened to come to the next scan with us and force the tech to tell her. But it isn't a matter of willpower for me. I like not knowing. I like having this time to let Smudgie just be Smudgie--a sweet little baby, not a boy or a girl yet, just a special being that I love so much. Maybe deep down I like that not knowing the sex keeps everyone else at arm's length from the pregnancy. Maybe. I don't know. But I'm finally happy to be asking a question with only good answers.

7 weeks 4 days; or, (A Little) More Worrying

This is the point in our first pregnancy when we learned the m&m had died. It's an arbitrary marker, since we don't know the exact date of fetal demise and I didn't have my d&c until a week later. But in my mind, this was always how long our pregnancy lasted: seven weeks, four days.

It's hard not to wonder what's going on in there. It's hard not to imagine the same thing happening all over again. I know that Smudgie has been so different this entire pregnancy: hitting all the milestones just when he's supposed to, showing great heartbeats at two separate scans. I've had no spotting (knock wood), no ambiguous maybe-this-isn't-so-good ultrasounds, nothing definite to point to a problem. That doesn't mean there isn't one, and I'm very aware of that fact, but it does mean I'm not out-right panicking. In fact, in a show of confidence, I even bought something for Smudgie yesterday: This Is New York, a classic children's book from the '60s that I love (and can easily re-gift to someone else if this doesn't work out, as it's not as personal-feeling as clothing).

But still, I won't feel like we've passed the last pregnancy until we have another excellent scan. Right now, there's just no way to know. And unfortunately, I don't know when that scan will be. Dr. W's scheduler copied down my e-mail address incorrectly on Friday, and by the time we sorted out the mix-up and she was able to send me the OB referrals, it was after four and both offices were closed. And thanks to this holiday weekend, they're closed again until tomorrow. I'll have to call and try to schedule something from the parking lot of the university where I teach before heading into the classroom.

I guess all my anxiety about this date and this stage is being transferred to scheduling an OB appointment. The fact that I don't have a doctor and I don't know when anyone is going to check on this pregnancy is freaking me out. I'm worried neither of these docs will be able to fit me in to their practices (even though both these doctors deliver at the same hospital as my fertility clinic and Dr. W. said to call and enlist their help if there's difficulty scheduling anything). I can always go back to the RE for another ultrasound if I have trouble getting an appointment-- Dr W. encouraged me to do so, in fact, if this is going to take more than three weeks. And she emphasized to me that she is still my doctor and I'm not without medical attention while I'm trying to set this up.

I've lived each of these past three weeks with an eye toward what comes next. It's been agonizing, but also comforting. I only have to anticipate the next scan, the next exam, the next week. Now...? What comes next? I don't know! We want to tell our parents about the pregnancy after our first positive OB exam. When will that be? Ah, the uncertainty!

Despite all this, I'm happy. Since the last ultrasound, I've been much calmer, much more relaxed, even if there's still a part of me that doesn't believe this is actually happening. I'm grateful to be pregnant, grateful for the support and love of Lawyer Guy, grateful to be feeling so good and nausea-free.

I'm glad to be here in this place. I know I am extremely fortunate. Whatever happens, I'll still believe that. And I hope so much that all my friends still waiting will have their own happy/scary milestones to celebrate soon.