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It was April Fool's Day the day I found out I was pregnant.
"This better not be a joke," I said to the stick in the bathroom. I was late, but that's no surprise. I'm late, I'm early, I'm late, I'm early. The reason we hadn't gotten pregnant sooner was we kept missing our mark.
Apparently, on St. Patrick's Day, we hit that mark with precision. I guess the green milk I served with the corned beef and cabbage worked.
The first eight weeks were fraught with fear. I hadn't stopped spotting the entire time. I would wake up in the middle of the night with that horrible twinging. The same twinging that signaled the end of my first pregnancy. That same twinging that made my world crash to an end last summer. Twice I had to go to the hospital for internal ultrasounds to verify the validity of the pregnancy.
"Oh, dear God, please still be there. Please still be there. Please see the heart beating..."
Then sure enough, "See that little white flicker? That's the heart. It's going 120 beats per minute. Just perfect."
At five weeks four days, my Peanut was strong.
At six weeks four days, Peanut was even stronger at 140 beats per minute. My doctor discovered the reason for all my spotting: super sensitive cervix. Yes, that's the clinical term. Actually, it's not, but as per usual in the medical community, it had ten or twelve syllables, and she said it so fast I just couldn't catch it. My mind was in a whirlwind with the fact that the baby was fine so far. A little iron-based topical medicine, and the spotting would be cured.
A sense of relief swept over me the next few days as going to the bathroom was no longer laced with panic. And since I have to urinate approximately every twenty minutes, that was turning into a lot of panic. That is until about five days later. I'm walking to work and the "medicine" decided to come out. Of course, at the time, I did not know it was the medicine.
Ok, I don't ask for much. Actually, that's a lie. I ask for the world, and I expect it efficiently and beautifully represented on a Limoges platter. But that's beside the point. You would think that my doctor would have said, "Oh, by the way, you may have a blob of skin-like discharge come out once the medicine congeals and peels away." But, no, I had to sit in my office for two hours until my doctor's office called me back to put me at ease. That's two hours of panic-stricken horror staring at a foreign object that I swore was my uterus coming out. No, I wasn't just losing the baby. My whole internal reason for being woman was systematically breaking down and dislodging itself while my boss wanted his budgets.
"Screw your budgets! Can't you see leprosy's set in!!!"
With that incident behind me, it's been pretty quiet the last four weeks. Nothing overly alarming going on. I've accepted the fact that 10% of woman experience first trimester spotting and bleeding. And, of course, with my nut-case of a cervix, I'm going to see some things every once and a while. The key is to stay calm.
I've graduated to external ultrasounds now that Peanut is a whole two inches long. However, even the pressing down from the wand caused some trauma to my cervix which sent me into a tizzy last Saturday morning. But key note here: I have no cramping. Bleeding + cramping = problems. No cramping, no problems. That's my new mantra.
Besides, after seeing these images in action last week, how could I not be in complete awe and utter amazement of my Peanut, my child, my blessing growing and bouncing around inside me.
Despite all my stress, panic, and neuroses, this tiny little miracle is toughing it out.
Their heartbeat is strong at 169 beats per minute. They squirm and bounce all over every few seconds. Olympic swimmer on our hands? Maybe.
Then Peanut finally turned and put their tiny little hand to their mouth, staying put for all but three seconds. But it was long enough to get this shot. One of the most precious and beautiful images I have ever seen.
May God shine his blessings down on all of you. And my God shine his blessings on Peanut and bring him/her safely into this world and into his mother's very eager arms.
And Cervix: Please behave the next six months. I've heard enough backtalk from you to last a lifetime. (Do I sound like a mother yet?)
Yankee Doodle Dandy,
- TYG
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