Friday, January 25, 2013

Diary from the last few months, in prose (Part 3)


from here
Week 10
At the airport we wait in line for ages to check in, and then to get through the security screen, and THEN I get pulled aside for a bomb test.  When it’s over, my husband says chirpily, “You’re not explosive!”

“I AM explosive!” I snap. “If someone else gets between me and some breakfast, I’ll vomit in their face.”

I am an absolute JOY to live with when pregnant. [husband’s comment removed by author]. My husband is wonderfully patient, and I love him dearly.

I can’t tell anyone that I’m pregnant because I’m still not entirely sure it’s true. Some nights I lie in bed imagining sharing the news and watching my tummy grow (even more) and explaining the concept of siblings to Moses and giving birth and being at home with another newborn. Other nights I imagine another sonographer placing her hand on my leg and gently letting us know that the news is not good. I don’t have to imagine this scenario any further; we’ve been there twice before. That particular story is old now, body; it’s boring, we’ve all moved on.

Let’s try something new.

 
Week 11
I get a call from the doctor; apparently she has some test results she wants to talk to me about.  I try not to freak out. I catch my husband singing, “I can’t live if living is without you.”

“Do you think I’m going to die?” I ask him. 

“Ummm...” he says guiltily, “I think... I was already singing that song... before you got the call...?”

The doctor tells me a blood test result looks worrying, and then, after 15 minutes of waiting and thinking of everything the news means, and may mean, and crying, she comes over to me: “The hospital said that result is normal for someone who’s had an anti-D injection recently, so it’s all okay!” It makes me feel better imagining her saying “My bad!” with her accent. Thanks for yet another unnecessary stress, pregnancy.

If all’s well and I keep feeling like I’m feeling, I may actually be one of those pregnant people whose morning sickness disappears after 12 weeks! And who can therefore eat well! And exercise! And not triple in size! I might enjoy this pregnancy! If

IF IF IF.

My head says, “I’m feeling too okay: there’s no baby.”

My tummy says, “There is a baby, and it’s due NEXT WEEK.”

The ultrasound’s on Friday.


Week 12
Our baby showed off his/her heartbeat, as well as some funky dance moves. I still can’t believe we’ve made it this far. I was hoping the ultrasound would stop my anxious questions, but now it seems I may not be able to breathe out again until I’m actually holding a newborn in my arms.

I’m craving Thai food. I want chicken Pad See Ew more than anything else in the whole wide world. I want a Thai chef to come live with us and cook for me until I get tired of eating his/her food (at which point a Mexican chef will move in). Alas, no chef, and limited Thai.

I keep thinking about Kate Middleton, whose baby is due in the month before ours: She’d have Thai food whenever she wanted it, I think enviously. Probably her own Thai chef too.

I’m looking like a pregnant woman, thinking like a bratty child, and sleeping like a baby (which is to say that I nap during the day and wake at least once during the night).


Week 13

When I was pregnant with Moses, I couldn’t stand the smell of toast or anything coconut-y, and the thought of eating either chicken or eggs also made me gag. I felt absolutely awful approximately 85% of the time, and mostly awful for another 10%. I don’t remember having cravings (although I remember at one point risotto was the one food that I actually wanted to eat, so I ate it quite a bit). I didn’t buy my first pair of maternity jeans until around 20 weeks.

This time smells are fine. I’m in love with sleep. Sleep is my best friend in the whole wide world. Mmm, sleep. I love you so much, sleep. I’m already exercising this time, too: I make approximately 476 trips to the toilet each day (my bladder seriously deserves a merit award for its diligent emptying; I reckon I could get four toilet visits out of a single slice of watermelon right now). I have intense but short-lived cravings. This is why when I feel like eating curry I should inhale the fumes of a jar of korma paste for a long while rather than cooking an entire meal that I’ll have no desire to eat from tomorrow onwards. I’m over Thai. Thai was so yesterday. I have a 20-week bump already; there’s no hiding the news anymore, this thing’s popped.

And I cry. Like, A LOT. I’ve cried over every hiccup along the way so far, and at each hiccup’s resolution. I’ve cried through a wedding and Juno and the times when I’m up later than I’d like to be and the times when I’ve felt overwhelmingly anxious and out of control, and sometimes I cry at the relief I feel when I climb into bed at the end of the day. And I cry when I thank God for getting us through this last few months, answering prayers I was too terrified to pray.

So. Farewell, first trimester.

*bawls*

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Diary from the last few months, in prose (Part 2)

from here
Week 7
Another ultrasound, to check on the blood clot. The gynaecologist looks at the ultrasound pictures taken by her student and says, “This thing is HUGE!” The student mumbles something and clicks on another shot, which obviously offers some perspective as she then inspects the screen carefully and says, “Oh no, it’s not that big. Sorry.”

I don’t care about the clot; the heart beats on! The gynaecologist thinks I have a 90% chance of all going well. Half of me wants to skip down the corridor; the other half keeps whispering, But she doesn’t know your history of miscarrying.

Speaking of the word ‘miscarry’, I like it less the more I think about it. Holding a carton of eggs upside-down-by-the-bottom-only seems to be a good example of ‘miscarrying’ – you’re carrying it wrong; it’s entirely your fault when the lid pops open and they smash all over your feet. There’s no mother-blaming in ‘spontaneous abortion’.


Week 8
Christmas holidays are the perfect time to be secretly pregnant. Snacking constantly, napping, having little desire to do anything – these describe both me when pregnant and my family on Christmas day.

I’ve been feeling a gazillion-billion times better this pregnancy than I have for the previous three, which I should be enjoying but I’m not. I talk about my brain leaving when I’m pregnant, but really it just transfers all of its energy to baby-related things like planning my next snack or meal, counting down the hours and minutes to nap- or bedtime, analysing my current levels of nausea, and wondering whether or not I’m even still pregnant. I (perhaps unhelpfully) decided after the last two miscarriages that a sure sign of things having ended was a couple of days of feeling bad followed by a day of feeling significantly better.

I have gone through this cycle (accompanied by constant questions: Do I feel bad bad, or just bad compared to the mildly bad I’ve been feeling this pregnancy? Is how I’m feeling today the same level of nausea I felt before the last couple of days, or is it milder? Why didn’t I rate and write down the mildness of my three-days-ago nausea so I could compare it with the mildness of today’s nausea? Why do I now not feel like drinking juice when I couldn’t get enough of it on Monday?! Is this the sign? AM I STILL PREGNANT?! etc., etc.) many, many times over this last couple of months.

The next step in the cycle is a fresh bout of sickness which makes me think, “This is good news!” followed closely by, “Oh God, why does it have to feel this horrible? I want to die.”


Week 9
According to this site*, this is the week at which morning sickness peaks. I’m feeling no worse, and am therefore freaking out. The last two pregnancies haven’t made it beyond week 8.

I didn’t want anyone to know about this pregnancy until 12 weeks, and may have succeeded in keeping it hidden if it hadn’t been for the bleed at 5 weeks; that day at the hospital just happened to be the one that my parents-in-law regularly come for dinner, and my husband didn’t want to cancel late or lie, so he told them. And then they told another two family members ([author’s comment removed by husband]). And so I told my mum, because I felt like she should be one of the first to know. 

Then this week a crazy man at the train station in Melbourne shocked me into honesty when he asked, “Um, sorry to be rude, Miss, but are you pregnant?” (He was glad to hear our news – “Aw, that’s great, that’s really cool!”). It took me a good few minutes to realise that he’d asked not because of some drug-induced ability to sense the presence of embryos, but because I LOOK PREGNANT (even when I don’t FEEL PREGNANT). I had been getting lax with my tummy-sucking duties.

So now 6 people know. At least I won’t have to untell Crazy Man if anything goes wrong.


///


* I’m enjoying reading the weekly updates here this time far more than following What to Expect again. Amalah is very funny, and I totally relate.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Diary from the last few months, in prose (Part 1)

from here
Week 4
I’m pregnant. I don’t need to take a test, I can smell it.

I take the test anyway (my husband prefers more tangible proof): only one line. I throw it into the bin, baffled, while wondering out loud what else I could be if not pregnant. My husband rolls his eyes and tells me the results take longer than 30 seconds (he’s an expert now, apparently). He picks the test out of the bin before dropping it again, shrieking, “WHICH END DID YOU PEE ON?!” I take the non-pee end: two lines. 



Week 5 (end of)
My husband’s away; I send him a message: “Cramps and bleeding this morning. Looks like this one’s over.” I now respond to miscarriage with resignation rather than shock. At least it was early this time, I think.


Week 6 (start of)
I go to the doctor to tell her about the blood. She freaks out and sends me to the hospital immediately for an anti-D injection (this is the downside to having my particular blood type). The emergency department responds to my arrival with the exact opposite amount of urgency. I sit and wait and wander and wait and cry and wait, and wait and wait some more. Nine and a half hours later I’m shown into a room. The obstetrician is uncomfortable with the fact that our meeting has started with so many tears from me. “Have you taken anything for the pain?” she asks. I tell her I’m not in pain, I’m just completely overwhelmed with how utterly shitty my day – nay, month – has been. She hands me a tissue and apologises for the wait and talks for a bit. Then, when my tears continue (I’m trying to stop! I really am), she asks again, “Do you want to take something for the pain?”

She does an ultrasound. She tells me there’s no heartbeat, and there’s haemorrhaging; it looks like a miscarriage. She’s sorry. Her words aren’t news to me; I gave up all hope at the first sight of blood, two days ago. She makes me an appointment for the following day to talk to someone else at the hospital about what happens next, then she gives me the injection I’d waited so long for and sends me on my way. The nurses apologise repeatedly as I leave the hospital. I don’t have the energy to smile at them.


Week 6 (start of) – the next day
At this point I feel like I should have pro-life activists camping on my front lawn and waving signs at my uterus when I walk to and from my car: “Everyone should have a birthday!” “Abortion – Aren’t you forgetting someone?“ You’ve grown a baby before, remember, body? WHY THE HELL CAN’T YOU JUST DO IT AGAIN?!

I arrive at my afternoon appointment and wait in the “quiet” waiting room (the one where they send the women who might not want to be surrounded by pregnant bellies). It’ll be an internal ultrasound this time.

“There’s a heartbeat!” the doctor tells me with a giant smile, and I say, “What?!” and she says, “There’s a heartbeat! Look!” She’s turned the screen around so that it’s now facing me, and she points and says, “Can you see it?” The screen is a grey blur - damn these tears! - but I nod anyway.

The haemorrhage is a blood clot; more bleeding or spotting is to be expected. My one sign that things are wrong has now been taken away from me. From now on I’ll have absolutely no idea whether or not that little heart is still beating.

Sorry for yelling at you this morning, body. Carry on. (But please be nice.)