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.


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* 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.