Long Time, No See

It has been a long time, faithful readers. I'm spacey like that, hard to know when I will lose interest in a project - especially one involving a long and painful story about my ex! So I'm happy to report that this time, I have good news - A Happy Story! - to tell you. After days and exhausting, sticky days of trying to get pregnant (I know, boo-hoo for us), Gray and I conceived our first child! We're very excited, obviously. We've been wanting to have children for a long time. I guess to be more specific, I've been wanting to have children for a long time. Gray simply didn't run screaming in the other direction when I broached the subject with him. Really, what more could you ask for in the future father of your spawn?

And so now I am writing to tell you all about this happy little journey we're about to begin! Don't worry, I have been warned by many about how difficult pregnancy can be, how painful the labor, and how exhausting a newborn will be. I've heard many times that 6 weeks is not long enough to take off from my job, because after 6 weeks I'll only have just begun to rub my eyes and ask what the hell just happened here and why is there drool on my chin? I've heard all about the trials and irritations and endless questions that toddlers and young children will inflict upon us. I'm truly more worried about Old Gray, as he's no spring chicken anymore and needs to lose maybe 30 or 40lbs to keep up with a child. I've read blog after blog about motherhood, and pain and the joy that goes with it. It's probably slightly unfortunate that the parents who write blogs about their children, such as Mrs. H.B.A. of dooce.com, are such talented and witty writers. I say this only because they make the most horrifying experiences sound funny and certainly less awful than truly they were, and the reader think to herself, "If H.B.A. can get through THAT and come out the other side with a pants-wetting tale for us readers, than SURELY I can face such trials with a sense of humor." I guess I'll be finding out if that is true before too long.

What I wasn't prepared for in this whole experience, granted I'm only at the beginning and am sure to have at least a dozen more surprises by the end of my second trimester at least, is the amount of anxiety I've had when pondering the possibility of miscarriage. It's pretty common, from what I read - something like 10% of pregnancies in the first trimester (don't quote me on that) end in "spontaneous abortion" - is that not the worst term you have ever heard!?! I have no reason to think that this might happen to me or my tiny, tiny child - I'm not a high risk pregnancy, I don't have a history of miscarriage (true, I don't have a history of pregnancy either), I don't have any illness, we didn't have a difficult time conceiving, etc. However, it seems that since I've become pregnant, not only have I begun to notice all of the expecting mothers around town, all of the babies everywhere I turn, but also I seem to be hearing a lot of stories about women who have recently miscarried.

I can think of 3 stories, all of which came from reliable sources, to women I know at least peripherally, and it scares the living bejesus out of me. What is it about the news that someone you know is now pregnant that compells you to regale her with tales of your HORRIBLE 14 day labor that resulted in a C-section and a child with a severe case of the Cone Head? What makes you think a newly-expecting woman would want to know that your sister's brother's mother's freaking dentist just had her fourth miscarriage in a year? Because let me tell you, as a newly-expecting mother, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! I am content to read my little medical books about the warning signs I need to watch for, and then store that information away in the trunk in my brain labeled "No way in hell is this ever going to happen to me!".

Unfortunately, Gray is also reading said medical books, which resulted in one very expensive Google search last week. It's the only Google search that I'm aware of that resulted in one panicked, puffy-eyed trip to the Emergency Room for ultrasounds on a baby that is TOO SMALL TO EVEN BE SEEN BY AN ULTRASOUND, and blood tests that did nothing to make us feel better about the fact that small, painless cramps do not equal miscarriage. But we did get a doctor who felt it crucial to tell us at 1:30 in the morning that he could not rule out an ectopic pregnancy and that there is a fair chance that this was a serious situation.

In the midst of this, Gray says to me that if something goes horribly wrong and this child isn't meant to be...we'll try again and everything will be just fine. But the problem with that, see, is that I don't want a different child - I want THIS one that I fell in love with the moment I saw that blue line on the EPT.

It was not, in fact, a situation at all (serious or otherwise) unless you would call it a First Time Parents are Terrified by all of the Miscarriage Stories and are Jumpy as Hell" situation. When I saw my OBGYN two days later, he was kind enough not to laugh and point at us, and to poo-poo our sheepish exclamations of how we overreacted like lunatics. Better safe than sorry, he says. Thanks Doc, that's why we pay you the big bucks! That, and the fact that you have magical hands that worked my sister's vagina like silly putty during her delivery, banishing tearing and epesiotomies with the touch of a finger.

So now, here Gray and I sit, in the middle of my first trimester with a baby that is smaller than my thumbnail, wondering what our child will look like and sound like and grow up to be. This tiny little baby, capable of wreaking all kinds of havoc on my gastrointestinal system, so far hasn't disturbed anything except my enjoyment of coffee (don't worry, just decaf) and made me gassy enough to power a Hummer. Oh, that and the fact that I've never been so exhausted in my life - getting up off the couch after 4pm is like running a marathon!

So check back in a bit - by spawn and I will be updating you with far more information than you'll ever care to have. In honor of all of the current political festivities, I may just call these updates The State of My Uterus addresses. Why not? It's catchy :)

Have a docious week!

Zippy