Bumps

If you ever want to see how differently human bodies carry extra weight, watch an episode of The Biggest Loser. The incredibly brave contestants bare almost all to get weighed each week, and what you'll see as they disrobe is how differently a few dozen or hundred extra pounds sits on different people.

The secret of weight loss, of course, is that if you have carried extra pounds for a long time, your skin doesn't just magically turn back into the smooth 22-year-old body you were hoping for. Skin remembers. Combine its extended stay in an extended format with whatever extra pounds you didn't lose, and your slimmer figure will be distinctly, well, lumpy.

There are two reasons I haven't put a baby bump photo on this site. First, I'm way too self-conscious to show that, because second, my baby bump is distinctly unsatisfying. Almost 22 weeks into this pregnancy, I don't really look visibly pregnant unless I'm wearing precisely the right outfit. Instead, I just look fat(ter).

You see, I naturally have two bellies -- a bit of belly above my waist (which, it seems, is where the majority of the 12 lbs I've gained so far have taken up residence) and a bit below. Now both areas are noticeably bigger than they were pre-pregnancy, but I'd be much happier if I only had the one below my waist -- the baby bump I'm supposed to have. Instead, I'm watching my usually defined waist gradually disappear, and eventually my two bellies (one fat, one baby) will meet. And then, I'm sure, I'll look quite pregnant.

Last week, a co-worker who was late to the big news figured it out and tried to touch my belly, I nearly bit her head off. I'm self-conscious about not having the right baby bump. And why wouldn't I be? Everyone else is -- just pick up a celebrity magazine and look for its "Bump Watch" section. Half the time the photos they print aren't even of people who are pregnant; they just had the nerve to breathe when the photo was taken. Earth to photo editors: that's not an embryo; it's a pelvis!

We're still here

Apologies for not posting in a while; I've been traveling a bit and now have a nasty cold. (What's more fun that having a cold? Having a cold with round ligament pain and no drugs!)

The good news is that the munchkin is still around and now is kicking away -- I've been feeling it move for weeks, but yesterday my partner felt it for the first time. We had our 20-week fetal survey ultrasound on Friday, and everything looks good -- the doctor was happy with how the baby's heart, brain, spine, kidneys, bladder, stomach, and limbs looked. The kid is 9 inches long and weighs about 11 ounces.

I don't really look pregnant -- just fat(ter). (Even though I've gained 12 pounds and am wearing only maternity pants and mostly tops these days.) It's a little disappointing not to be showing at nearly 21 weeks, but I'll take what I can get. I'm excited about starting to show.

Next tasks:
- get room ready
- figure out what to register for (egads)
- hire a doula
- figure out daycare
- and a lot more than my virus-addled brain can't compute right now.

The sigh of relief heard 'round the world

That was me this morning, falling to my dining room floor in relief at the news that the amnio were normal.

I've been telling people at work today. After two years of trying, and two false starts, this is a day I never thought I'd see. And yet, here it is.

PHEW.

The waiting game

Is there any part of this process that doesn't involve long, expectant (ha) periods of time?

You wait to get your period to start birth control pills, you wait to start the injections, wait for daily phone calls announcing your estradiol numbers, wait for the call to do the trigger shot. Wait for the fertilization report, wait to pee on a stick, wait for your beta results.

But that's not all! Then there's the waiting for the seven-week viability check, waiting for the (cancelled) CVS, waiting for the end of the first trimester, waiting 45 minutes in a ridiculously small and windowless waiting room to see your OB, waiting to have the amniocentesis (at 16 weeks), and then, now, waiting for the results. And, provided all is well, of course then you wait to give birth and then, once the kid has finally arrived, wait for some kind of child-related disaster.

So far, everything with me is fine. Nausea is gone, headaches have subsided, lower back pain isn't as bad; I feel good. And our baby is still in there, it still has a heartbeat, it is measuring on-target. I may have felt it move. It has arms and legs, a bladder, a head, a spine, the whole megilla. The ultrasonographer at the amnio said all of the structures look good, and she listed several symptoms of Down Syndrome that she did not see in our baby. Then the perinatologist came along and, in what I presume was his standard, lawsuit-preventing answer to anxious gravids, said, well, 50 percent of Down Syndrome kids don't show any symptoms on an ultrasound.

Uh, fantastic.

So now we wait. Results take either 10 to 14 days or 7 to 10 days, depending on who you listen to. Today is day 5. As usual, I cannot wait. In some ways, this is the moment I've been waiting for the most, because while I've told several friends that I'm pregnant, almost no one in my close-knit office has any idea why I'm expanding. I've only told my immediate family. And I have waited for the moment when I actually get to tell people for so long. Here's hoping it actually happens.

Firsts

"Is this your first?"

That's the question people ask -- in the deli, in yoga classes -- when they find out you're pregnant. It's a question I can't quite bring myself to answer.

My first would be about a year old now. Maybe he'd be walking. (For some reason I feel it was a boy.)

My second and third -- identical twin boys -- would have been born this month.

My fourth stopped developing about five weeks ago, and its sibling -- my fifth -- still seems to be around, kenina hora.

Yesterday after my prenatal yoga class, I went to a crowded taqueria for lunch. A woman from my class sat down to share my table. In talking about our pregnancies, we discussed our past ones. I realized that for the third time in a month, I shared very personal information about my miscarriages with someone I barely know.

I have fought so hard to become a mom. In my life, I've dealt with major work difficulties, breakups, and family health crises. I fought to lose and keep off 75 pounds, and I trained myself to run half marathons. But nothing has been harder than trying to conceive. And nothing has been harder than staying on track after disappointment upon disappointment. So when a woman sits down at a restaurant to share chips and salsa with me, I can't just blithely pretend that this pregnancy came easily. Infertility and miscarriage are part of this narrative, and I don't feel the need to whitewash it. Moreover, I feel that to get me, and to get what this pregnancy means to me, you need the back story.

No, this isn't my first baby. It'll hopefully be my first child, but it isn't the first time a living being has taken up residence in my womb and in my heart.

It's alive!

It should come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I'm a little anxious about this pregnancy. Since passing all of the initial tests, I've graduated to a state of regular pregnant-ladyness. Which is great, except for the part about not seeing the doctor that often. How the hell am I supposed to go a whole month without knowing for sure if it's still kicking?

Well, I don't have to, thanks to the combined wonders of modern technology and the Internet. Yesterday the fetal doppler monitor I ordered came in the mail. For $46 a month, I can use this thing to find the baby's heartbeat and even see what it is on a digital readout.

I didn't really think it was dead; even though my nausea has mostly subsided and my fatigue has improved, I'm definitely getting bigger and hungrier. But with my second miscarriage, I had no miscarriage symptoms and the embryos were gone. So there's no guarantee that the absence of symptoms is good news.

But a display of munchkin's heartbeat -- it was in the 150s -- is a pretty good guarantee for now. Worth every penny.

Milestones

I definitely feel like I'm in a foreign country without a map. This whole 12-weeks-pregnant-and-everything-looks-good thing is completely foreign territory.

Today I am 12 weeks. 12 weeks! Never would have thunk it. Can't decide if this is the start of the second trimester -- even the medical books don't seem to agree. I'm going to be literal (for a change -- NOT) and decide that I'll be in my second trimester at 13 weeks 3 days (divide 40 weeks by 3, etc.).

Last night I received my last intramuscular progesterone shot -- something I'd been getting daily for more than two months. Thank God. My ass is going to be confused when it doesn't get stabbed every night.

At this point, I'm like a regular pregnant lady, going to see the doctor every four weeks. Which means I don't go back to the doctor until 2008. After being wanded every two weeks at a minimum, it's bizarre to go four without seeing an ultrasound machine.

My newest worry: figuring out when to tell people, mostly at work. I would like to wait until the amnio results come back, but that won't be until around January 23, when I'll be 18 weeks (kenina hora). I can't imagine I won't be showing by then, and while I am generous of belly even when not knocked up, I think by then it will be obvious that I've gone beyond eating too many Christmas cookies.

So the question becomes, to tell before the amnio results? That terrifies me. I believe that everything will be fine, but at the same time, I am having a hard time balancing my desire to tell people before it's completely obvious and my desire to keep it quiet until I know the test results are okay.

Feedback welcome!

CVS converted to amnio

We went to our appointment today. All looks good, but the doctor was concerned it might be difficult to get a sample of the cord for the surviving twin. He was having trouble telling what went where and felt it would be better if we wait to do an amnio, since at that point there will be no question of whether he's getting into the right sac.

So, no CVS today. However, we did get to see a bunch of really cool ultrasound pictures. We saw the head, the arms, and the legs! (It seems to have two of everything it should have, and just one head.) It seems to have my big nose, and it was really active -- moving around a lot, and it grew 4 mm just in the last two days! It had a heart rate of 170 bpm. We're 11 weeks 1 day today (cannot believe that!) but it measured 11 weeks 5 days. Maybe it'll take after its big momma.

The doctor was able to see that the nuchal translucency -- the fold at the back of the neck -- was nice and thin. That's good, because a thickened NT can indicate Down syndrome. He thought everything looked great, so we have to wait 5 more weeks for the amnio and 2 weeks after that for the results.

I was really nervous this morning about this test, and while I wish I didn't have to wait so long, I'd rather wait and know that the answers are pretty definitive instead of get ambiguous results and then end up having a CVS AND an amnio. So, provided nothing goes awry, we have no doctor's appointments until 2008.

My one and only

What was two is now one. And really, that's okay.

The ultrasound we had two weeks ago showed two embryos. One looked fine, and one looked a little small and had a rapid heartbeat. Today's scan showed one great-looking embryo (measuring 3 days ahead of schedule) with a good heartbeat, and one embryo that was half the size and didn't have a heartbeat at all. This is now a singleton pregnancy.

We are both sad and relieved. The idea of twins terrified me, and the idea of a selective reduction pained me. At least if I'm not going to have twins, I can be glad the decision was made for me.

The next step is a CVS, which happens (egads) Thursday. I had been advised that a CVS wasn't recommended with twins, though our perinatal clinic apparently does them on twins all the time. Their miscarriage rate is the same (1 in 1,000) with both CVS and amnio, and a CVS happens several weeks earlier. I realized that if this pregnancy isn't going to happen, I'd rather know sooner than later. So Thursday it is.

I seem to have produced a lot of chromosomally problematic embryos. Here's hoping the one that's left is perfectly fine.

Public service announcements

1. Pedestrians have the right of way in California.
2. On the BART escalator, you stand to the right and descend or ascend on the left.
3. Things not to put on a resume: "Typing speed: 48 wpm" or "GPA: 2.5." If it's not helping you sell yourself, skip it.
4. During IVF, embryos are transferred to the uterus. They are not implanted. If they could be implanted, a lot more IVF babies would be running around the planet right now.
5. I am sorry to say this, but implantation spotting is rare.
6. There's a Internet newsgroup called "alt.possessive.its.has.no.apostrophe." Consider this sentence: "It's cute that the dog is carrying its leash like that." "It's" is a contraction for "it is." It takes the place of a subject and a verb. "Its" is possessive. You use "its" just as you would use "his" or "her."
7. If you sell fish oil and dog food that contains meat, you are not a vegetarian co-op.
8. Everyone's height is proportionate to his or her weight, regardless of how tall they are or how much they weigh. If you are placing a personal ad and don't want to date fat people, just say "no fatties." It helps tell people more about you, and it does all of the rest of us the favor of not answering your ad.
9. Cappuccino doesn't have an H. Espresso doesn't have an X.
10. Panino means sandwich in Italian. Panini is plural. Therefore, a "panini sandwich" is both redundant and incorrectly plural.
11. Yes, your carry-on is probably too big for the overhead bin.
12. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000.
13. Your golden doodle is cute, but it's still a mutt that cost $3,000.
14. No, I do not want a Jews for Jesus pamphlet, ever.