Yesterday was the Starfish's debut ultrasound. It sounds like we will have one more in another 8ish weeks for an Anatomy profile...whatever that is. But yesterday was pretty great. I have been spending far too much mental energy worried about the stupid little things. I am afraid our messy habits will make us bad parents. I am afraid I will never sleep again. I am afraid I will hate my job and wish I were home with my baby all the time. I am afraid we won't have enough money. There seem to be so many little details yet to work out and so many of those seem to be things that I am just going to have to wait and see. It is hard for me, the girl who wants to know where we are going for dinner so she can look up the menu on the web and decide what she wants to eat before she ever touches a menu. I like to know what's coming and this whole pregnancy thing is a bitch if you hate waiting.
We found out last week that I am a CF gene carrier and I talked about all of the fun associated with that. G is still waiting to hear from the Dr's office when he can get in a get screened but talking to the genetic counselor yesterday made us both feel a bit better about our options and the probability of our baby being born with CF. The point of this is that it had sort of put this odd pause on my mental/emotional connection with this little spirit. I was afraid we might see something 'game changing' in the testing and ultrasound. I was afraid to continue gestating my love and attachment in case the Dr said "Well, we don't see any movement" or "No skull..." all of that horrible shit flashed through my mind. I just sort of waited this last week. Yesterday, when the half crabby ultrasound tech squirted the warm gel on my belly I thought "well, game on kid. Let's see what ya got". And then I saw it. A round little head with a perfect nose. Arms, legs, I could even see the heart beating like a little firefly in their chest. I gasped. "It's a little person. Inside of me. That's our baby." Tears ran down my cheeks and the ultrasound lady said "wait, haven't you had an ultrasound elsewhere yet?' When I said no she said "Well, meet your baby." She then lead us on a guided tour of all of the reassuring landmarks like the skull, the nuchal tube, fingers, toes, nose, and butt. She told us the baby was right on growth for 12 weeks and 5 days and that everything looked "just as it ought to". She tilted me on my head and got the little one to move around and we could see the jaw just moving away and the arms moving around. G joked, "It's definitely your kid. It's already talking with it's hands".
It may sound stupid and maybe I am already doing it wrong, but I fell in love with this little one yesterday. I have been walking around feeling like I ate bad Thai food for the last 3 months and yesterday, seeing a tiny human shaped form swimming around and napping on my bladder I felt like I might just be someone's mom after all. It is still so very surreal but somehow just a little more real today. Last night I had amazing dreams. I dreamt I was flying and dancing and I didn't have to come down unless I wanted to take a running start and fly again. I was moving all over the sky and the music was awesome. I felt like something out of a movie. I awoke this morning feeling happy and not ill. I had slept for 6hrs without waking up to go to the bathroom. I woke up feeling so good, I think I'll clean out the fridge.
Lovely lovely lovely. Just take things as they come right now, it's the only thing you can do. Right now, you have a healthy, thriving wriggle worm and I don't see how you can keep yourself from falling utterly in love. You've been a mom since day one.:)
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