Well, I've been taking a little break to just stare at my belly in awe. It popped. I mean, I know I said it already popped but it seriously popped. My belly button, while still clinging to its "innie" status, looks deformed and stretched. The linea negra goes almost up to my breasts. I feel growing pains somewhere across the vast landscape of abdomen at least daily, and it's a feeling like a dull pulsing of muscles that have never known they could stretch so much.
But the size of my belly is barely the half of it. The baby is only 2 pounds but I've gained over 20! It's megacurves for my new body and I'm already itching to work it all off. In the meantime, though, I eat. Not as much as I ate in the first trimester, but still I'm hungrier than I was on a normal day more than 6 months ago.
And, my body feels a bit like a perpetual Leaning Tower of Pisa, teetering and tottering up stairs, around corners, and across slippery ice. When I take a turn too fast, I feel like a skidding car up on just two wheels, ready to topple over. When I bend down in a certain way, or sit flat on the floor, it takes some strategic moves to get back up.
My hormonal state amazes me. I have always been a little bit anxious, my parents are quite skilled at the art of calming me down. But now, I don't feel anxious, I just feel plain crazy. My patience lives barely as long as a lit match. I pity all customer service personnel who have had to interact with me in the last couple months. I'm very quick to explode, and when I get back down to Earth, I feel almost like I went unconscious. My husband has now learned the art of calming the beast. Lucky guy. Oh yes, and the crying. Crying when I can't figure out my new cell phone, crying when I get frustrated about missing the UPS guy, crying when I burn the bottom of the pan. You know, some more out-of-body and out-of-mind moments that I awake from, dazed. I can't wait until I'm on the other side, though I hear the emotions will keep on flowing after the babe arrives. And the pregnancy brain is in full effect. Yesterday, at my prenatal care appointment, I walked into the restroom with a pee cup, and, instead of properly collecting my urine sample, I relieved myself right into the toilet with a big, long sigh, staring confused at the cup in my hand. Yep, Amanda, that was a pee cup. Supposed to pee in it. So I managed to push a few drops into it, walked back to the midwife, and apologized. Luckily, she had all the sample she needed.
It's nice to be really, really showing. While there is always a plethora of strangers to interact with (and avoid), I feel like it makes more sense now when I bug servers with a million questions about pasteurization and meat preparation, or get up at awkward times during the meal to relieve myself. Oh the peeing, it's a new feeling, when I have to pee now. I can literally fully go, get up and roll back up my pants, adjust my long shirt, shake everything back into place, and then have to go again by the time I get to the sink. Clearly, the babe is pushing on the goods because if I bend in a certain way or walk up steps built at a particular grade, I gotta go. I did a step class at the gym last Saturday morning, and peed four times during the hour class. Clearly two risers equals Little bumps into the bladder. I have to pee RIGHT before I leave my house in the morning because by the time I walk to the subway station and board the train, I have to go again. Fortunately, from there, it's only about 15 minutes until I reach a toilet. And, those hefty laughs or deep sneezes, might create a little leakage. I have to carry extra pairs of underwear with me at all times. Nothing like losing a drop in your panties to feel like you aren't just growing a baby, you're turning into one. Oh boy, I am being too honest now.
Might as well ride that wave.
Two weeks ago, we went for an ultrasound at the original hospital where we were going to deliver. The sonographer stared so goshdarn confused at the image, and she had a perpetual frown on her face, a look of pity that she would throw my direction every few minutes. Hm. Then the doc got me all in a tiff, talking about sticking needles into my belly, doing an amniocentesis (for what purpose at this point, I never figured out), creating visions of having to medevac me from CHOP so I could get some adult care in case I have complications during delivery. While ultimately the message was: baby is totally OK, there were enough questions and concerns and stern faces to send me back to a few weeks ago.
But then, yesterday, we went back to CHOP. And we got the thumbs up to never have to go anywhere else. Thank goodness. Everyone at CHOP looks confused at the screen too, don't get me wrong, but it's in that curious, we're gonna figure this out and get it to work for this family kind of way. Not in a "we pity you" way. They talk a lot about what they see, they talk to each other openly in front of us, they ask questions of each other. They are true intellectuals, scientists, and they are confident in their abilities to work with a situation the likes of which is new to them. Because even though most of them (maybe all) have never seen an esophageal duplication cyst before, they have seen plenty, and they've conquered plenty, including the impossible, and from what they know, they've got this in the bag. They print out book chapters and make copies for us, and they do everything in a team format, so there's never just one jerk with an ego making a poor decision. Some docs operate that way, but not these folks. We are very lucky. And they told us that all the scary things we were hearing two weeks ago from the other folks just didn't have to be. They are honest about what they don't know yet, but they speak with a lot of confidence about monitoring Little's growth and making smart decisions at the right time. No getting all into a panic.
And that feels right, I tell ya, because Little feels very healthy to me! She moves all day pretty much every day. She has routines. She reacts to what I eat. When we watch her on ultrasound, we see her yawn, hiccup, and stretch out her arms and legs. She's a little normal babe doing her thing. So when the medical folks ask me "what's wrong with the baby" or use the term "abnormality" and "birth defects" I feel a bit confused. She feels normal to me, not that I have ever been pregnant before, but nothing feels like she's in distress or slowed. Little feels like a normal bebe to me! I watch Syd's little lady Gray and I feel like it looks how it feels, minus a few months of development. Less intention, but plenty of reacting!
Yesterday, they gave us a tour of the NICU. It was difficult for both of us, but overall good. The little ones are surrounded by machines larger than they'll grow in the next 10 years. Some of them are in little glass cocoons, under fluorescent bulbs, wearing knit hats that are shorter than my index finger. But the unit still has its pleasures. There are pretty paint colors, stars on the walls, two big recliner chairs next to every baby's bed for parents and visitors. Their names are in foam letters, stuck to their metal cribs or plastic bassinets. While we saw plenty of exhausted parents there, one nursing, one sleeping, some of the babies weren't attended by parents. I understand that parents need a moment to live life, eat, sleep, but it was heartbreaking to see babies sleeping or fussing without a parent in attendance. Granted, our tour was at the late lunch hour and there were folks in the waiting area. But if the hospital doesn't watch me, I may end up trying to bring home more than one baby. It resulted in another unanticipated conversation--how will we attend to the baby after she's born and still take care of ourselves. We can't really answer that question until we figure out exactly what will happen, like how soon she'll undergo surgery or what her condition will be when she's born, but it's giving us another thing to try to think through. Every baby can only have two visitors at a time (including parents), so we'll have to parcel out our guests and move two by two. It'll make for different introductions than we might have expected, but as long as Little can feel the love of her extended family, it'll be just fine.
The delivery rooms at CHOP have windows in the wall, which is literally a passthrough for the infant once she's born, into the adjacent infant emergency testing/care room. Once she's born, I probably will get almost no time to bond with her--she'll go through the little window in the wall and they'll check her breathing, her heart health, and her ability to swallow. Lucky for us, the room is set up this way, we'll at least still get to watch her and be in the same room with her. I've heard stories where folks see their babies disappear.
The hospital does what it can to make our time with them as comfortable as possible. There's a kitchen in the NICU, a roomy waiting room, and down the hall a library with wireless access, computers, books, and tvs to watch movies on. They want folks to be comfortable, and to be able to take breaks and feel normal. It was nice to see.
At the end of our visit, we met with our new midwife. She was really awesome. She was honest about what to expect but gave me plenty of hope that they'll do everything they can to abide by what I've wanted for the birth all along--natural, no drugs, lots of movement, and the support of my husband. They'll have to monitor me during all of labor, but I won't have to wear an outdated monitor that keeps me wired to a machine, I'll be wearing a high-tech device that I can move around the room in, wireless, and that will even keep working fine if I want to take a shower during labor. She's coordinating plenty for us: tours of different units in the hospital, a meeting with an anesthesiologist, meetings with lactation consultants, and time with a social worker to get even more details in place and ready for delivery day.
Right now, Little's heart sounds great, she is swallowing just fine, and she's growing at the right rate.
I feel like we are in excellent hands. I said to my husband that I already feel bad for baby #2. He or she won't get nearly the expert attention that Little is getting. Lucky lady--she's so worth it. I can see it in the 3D ultrasounds (we got new ones too!), she's showing her gratitude in the most plain of ways: long yawns, fawning arm positions. She feels loved. She really is.
