Fasten Your Seat Belts

Several months ago, a friend said to me. "Life is a roller coaster. Fasten your seat belts and keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times."

Yesterday was definitely a roller coaster of emotions for me. I started my day with 45 minutes of toe-tapping and sighing as I watched pregnant woman after pregnant woman get called back into the OB/GYN clinic exam rooms at the Minneapolis Park Nicollet Clinic. I studied each one, wondering how far along they were, how much bigger they were going to get, how much bigger I was going to get. A Spanish woman in a gray jogging suit stood next to her husband at the appointment desk and said she needed to make an another appointment for next week. “And you’re 40 weeks right now?” the receptionist asked. She didn’t look that big. Maybe I won’t be huge. But maybe she was a tiny thing 9 months ago.

During the last week as my pants have started tugging at my waist and my abdomen has continued to expand, I’ve started to realize that I’m not going to be able to hide my pregnancy that much longer. I’ve only gained 3.5 pounds since those little embryos were transferred back in, but I must be losing it somewhere, because I’m definitely gaining in my boobs and my belly.

“You ARE getting bigger,” Brooklynn says, “But you’re not too big yet.”

Last week Dr. Brown explained that the progesterone in my system relaxes all the muscles and ligaments which allows my body to enlarge and make room for baby. Even if I have gained little weight, the progesterone has caused my rib cage to loosen and expand (allowing my bra to dig deep into the skin of my back) and helping my uterus to grow to the size of a large grapefruit or a small melon. In the next week that little melon will move up and out of my abdomen and away from my bladder… which should allow me to finally sleep for more than a few hours without getting up to pee. However, that shift is definitely going to make it harder to hide my pregnancy.

I told Kelly yesterday that I’m freaking out about that, that I am really kind of terrified of having perfect strangers know that I’m pregnant, having people I don’t know walk up to me and start talking to me about my pregnancy. I’m an introvert for God’s sake. Please don’t touch my belly unless you actually know my name. :)

After my long wait in the lobby, Sheela Solomon’s nurse called me back to an exam room, and we went over all the same forms I went over with Dr. Brown last week (“No, I am not allergic to latex.” No family history of genetic diseases. Just Diabetes. Cancer. High blood pressure.) She weighed me. Commended me for only gaining 3.5 pounds total in the first trimester. She took my blood pressure. 92 over 66. Lower BP is typical during this stage in pregnancy. She gave me pages of emergency phone numbers and helpful hints for dealing with nausea and a brochure on mercury levels in seafood. And then I got undressed and wrapped a gown around myself (“Open in back”) and waited. And waited. After 20 minutes I started kicking the table beneath me and speaking out loud. “Jesus Christ. This is ridiculous.” When I see Dr. Brown I never have to wait. At all. When my appointments are with Sheela the nurse practitioner, a 30 minute appointment always stretches into two hours of mostly waiting. I’m not a patient patient. Eventually, after I had read every damn poster on the wall explaining all the different techniques that a dad can use to comfort a mother during labor, I did what a lot of women do when they get angry. I started crying. And crying.

When Sheela finally arrived it was all business and she again went over all the same forms. (“Get used to it,” Ann says. “They ask you those same things at every single appointment.”) Sheela had trouble finding the heartbeat with the hand held Doppler device, and I said, “If we don’t find it, I’m going to worry so I’m not leaving here until we hear it.” Dr. Brown found it last week. She told me that Dr. Brown was right across the hall so if she couldn’t find it “we’ll just go get him to do it.” She doesn’t like me.

She got a new machine. She found the heartbeat. I exhaled.

On my way out she told me to make an appointment for July with Dr. Brown and an appointment with her for August “unless you’d rather see Dr. Brown every time and you can do whatever you want,” she said, “You’re the boss.” It’s mutual.

On my way home I got a call from Kathy at the perinatal clinic. She told me the CVS tests were good, that the baby had all the normal chromosomes which eliminates Downs syndrome and trisomy 13 and trisomy 18 and some of the less severe birth defects related to the sex chromosomes. “So that’s all we tested for,” she said, “and everything looks great.”

“Can’t you tell gender?’ I asked

“Yes I can. Do you want to know?”

“Absolutely.”

“It’s a boy.”

“Yay!!!!!”

I exhaled. In a big emotional frenzy I told her that was fantastic and that was what I was secretly hoping for. I had told everyone else that I would be thrilled with a boy or a girl (which is the truth) but Tuesday I admitted to Pam that I really was hoping for a boy.

I called Ann. I called Mom. I called Kelly. I was so excited. And then I put the phone down and thought about my dad, wanted to call him so much. A boy. God, how thrilled he would be.

And so I sobbed for a little while and thought of all the times I’ll sob in the future. Just like Ann did that first time Zachary stepped up to the plate at a T-ball game.

I called and texted a bunch of my friends to tell them it's a boy. Pam said she would take him to football games. Tami, who claims she never uses text messages, sent me a message with the teenage abbreviation "OMG!" Kae told me that now she "can start picking out cool baby things I see for him." John said "awesome" and Jim said "Jimmy Joe Junior" and Karen said "Hurrah!" and Jezail said "I told you so."

My friend was right. "Life is a roller coaster. Fasten your seat belts and keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times." Thanks so much to all of you who have been a form of seat belt for me through all the ups and downs during the last year… and the 39 years before that. I am so incredibly blessed. And I’m going to have a son. :)