Hipster baby

A tiny little boy just came in tight jeans, a button-up shirt and checkered vans. He was the cutest little thing ever and made my eyes water. Maybe I’ll dress my child in hipster fashion…

What I realized today is that pregnancy is just a bunch of milestones, lined up and ready to cross. Today, we went through a big one. Normally to work I wear a button-up shirt below a nice sweater or blazer. Today I was unable to button up the bottom few buttons of my shirt. Meaning: I’m walking around with only the top half of my shirt done up and my belly poking out the rest. And I’m not even close to my full dignity-loosing potential yet. The best is yet to come!

How weird is this whole pregnancy thing?

There are a few pregnancy things that just make me cock my head to the side in a confused fashion when I think about them.

-Inside, I’m growing a baby with different DNA and blood type to me. He’s not just a part of me reminiscent of Eve being a little bit of Adam; he’s a weird combo of me and Toby. Lately I’ve been reading about the dangers of the baby’s blood commingling with mine (because I have something with a different blood type inside me!) in the case of an amnio and it struck me as bizarre. We’re totally different people, but for now he needs my resources to survive. In such a short time he’ll be his own being with his own blood type, his own DNA, and he’ll be on the outside! How exciting!

-My whole life, it’s been a tiny bit taboo to talk about… certain things in mixed company. But here I am, openly acknowledging that my spouse and I have sex. I talk about the fact that I’m going to shoot the baby out of my vagina. And feed him with my boobs. Why is this suddenly socially acceptable? Generally you’re meant to keep the sex/vagina/boobies talk in either your bedroom or in the bar but suddenly it’s all okay, or even encouraged! Why?

-I woke up in the middle of the night last night and told Toby that I had no idea how to change a boy diaper! I don’t even know whether it’s a boy or not, but… I don’t know some things! When you diaper a boy, should his penis point upwards or downwards? Do they really pee on you when you change them? I asked Toby and he seemed to have a surprising amount of insight into penis things that I didn’t know, but still… There’s a lot of unanswered (and weird, I know!) questions that I haven’t yet considered.

This whole baby-having thing – it’s a pretty hilarious adventure…

Sixteen

This week my baby is starting to play; he’s tugging on the umbilical cord that attaches us and sucking on his thumb. He’s only the length of a six-inch sub (which is sooo easy for me to visualize!) and is expected to double in length and weight in these next three weeks. Month four is sure to be an exciting one! Everything I read suggests that I will not begin to feel pain in my sides, as my uterus and pelvic walls grow and stretch. The most exciting development this week is that the tiny bones in his ears are growing, which means he’s starting to hear sounds!

Also, I finally gave in to my incredible paranoia, and… rented a Doppler. It’s coming by the end of this week and I just can’t WAIT!

The day that Mr. Wiches was sad

When Toby goes off to work, as must inevitably happen at times, Sandwiches always sulks around for a few days. It’s not that he hates me or anything, it’s just that he really, really misses his daddy. I don’t pounce around and wrestle on the floor with him, I don’t clean his eye boogies as well, I don’t let him rest his jowlies on my mouth, and I don’t know how to itch him in the particular place where he feels scratchy. I hold him like a baby, feed him when he needs to be fed, let him lie on my tummy, and scratch his French Bulldog ears until he grows tired of it. But in the end, I’m his mom and not his dad. Since Toby left about 48 hours ago, Sandwiches has been looking around the house, hoping that his daddy is hiding somewhere. Even at night he’s been lurking around looking for Toby, even though I’ve told him that he’s not downstairs and will be back soon.

All of this gets me thinking about how it will be when baby is here. Will it be hard for Toby to leave his baby and will it be even harder for the baby to have her/his dad leave? Many people – from the doctors to the midwife to my friends – have inquired as to how I will handle being a single mom for some and up to half of the time. When Toby and I were first together, it was really hard for me. In a relationship, I was pretty used to having someone there always. I found it reasonable to assume that my loved one would be there for me on my birthday or when I was having a rough day or when I needed them for my amusement. With Toby, however, it was a different matter. When he’s at work, he really away. While it was hard to get used to at first, two years later I’ve discovered that I’m really used to it! So much that when there hasn’t been all that much work lately, I’ve really missed my alone time! I’ve come to enjoy our rhythm; both our time together, our time apart, and in turn – our reunion after being away from each for so long. Will the baby feel this way too? I like driving him to work, saying a tearful goodbye, and knowing that two weeks later we’ll drive there again to get him. I always say to Sandwiches, “It’s just you and me, buddy,” as we drive away, and he turns around and tries to keep looking out the back window. Will having time away from daddy make time with daddy more exciting for baby? I sure hope he sees it that way. Of course, they’ll always be able to talk on the phone and when Toby is here he’ll be able to be with baby full-time. I’m hoping that baby sees it as a good thing that his dad has such a fun and exciting and important job, which will hopefully outweigh the time we have to spend away from him.

While I wander the aisles of the bulk food section…

The big date is set – our next ultrasound is on July 12th! I’m so thrilled and excited and can’t wait to see our little baby! I dislike that I have over a month to wait, but still, at least now it’s certain! By then we’ll be over twenty weeks in and the baby will be the size of a cantaloupe.

Some coworkers were just talking about how they loooove to shop, and I joked about how clothes shopping isn’t much fun these days, but food shopping sure is. They laughed and said, “Heeheee! Imagine! Dana just ambling along the isles of Whole Foods!” I laughed too. It’s totally funny because it’s true.

Lovely

In reading the midwife booklet, they make it clear that each appointment is “a celebration of pregnancy” and that they’re there to aid something that is wholly natural and normal. Instead of seeing pregnancy as a medical thing to be dealt with, they just guide you though what your body is meant to do. That, I can totally get behind.

Five more months until my family goes from three to four

The midwife appointment went great. We heard the heartbeat and it was a quick woosh-woosh-woosh. She said it was about 150bpm, which is considerably slower than last time but still perfectly normal. I’ve heard the old wives’ tale about a very fast heartbeat (160, like last time) indicating a boy and a slower one meaning that a girl is coming. Now I’ve had a bit of both so we’re pretty in the dark about who will be giving the sex-talk ten years down the road (we’ve agreed that if it’s a boy Toby has to do it, and vice-versa). He’s swimming right in line with my belly button, which is soooo weird! I would have thought it’d be lower, and have a feeling that a higher uterus indicates an older baby. We’ll see at the next ultrasound, I suppose. She also showed us how to feel my uterus/the baby from the outside! She easily felt it and kept going, “Don’t you feel that ridge? That’s him!” I totally didn’t feel it, but even this morning Toby kept touching it and saying, “I can feel him!!!!”

In terms of my midwife vs. doctor dilemma, I’m still so totally torn. It was Toby’s job to be really aware of which experience was better for us, as now he’s been to both the doctor and the midwife. Like me, he could see the benefits of both. The midwife was a really nice and relaxed atmosphere. Instead of sitting on the doctor table thing, you sit on a nice futon with throw-pillows and face a “lending library” of pregnancy information. The midwife was attentive, easygoing, and gave validity to my typed list of questions. One thing that I really appreciated about her was how she really acknowledged Toby and asked him questions specifically related to him. She asked about his job, whether he had questions about the whole thing, and she asked also if having the baby brought up any feelings about his being adopted. I really like how they put a serious emphasis on to how he was feeling, rather than it being all about me and baby. I know this is so much about him too and I appreciated seeing that coming from the professional. So, all in all it was a good experience with the midwife. Obviously, I have no idea which is the better decision and I won’t know that until I’m actually going through it. We’re going to go through the process of moving over my paperwork and hopefully it all goes well with going through the midwives. And if it doesn’t? Well, if it doesn’t go well, we’ll deliver the next baby through the medical clinic!

When I told the midwife about my fears of something going terribly wrong, she acknowledged that it was not just me being anxious and paranoid, but that it’s a valid thing that happens to everyone at this stage. I inquired as to whether I should do something drastic, such as buying a Doppler, and she found that notion a bit funny. She said it was entirely up to me, but that I’ll truly find a sense of calm and acceptance next month once I feel the baby start moving around. She’s dealt with a lot of people who experience the exact same anxiety as me and then completely move away from fear once they have the constant reassurance of movement. So, since everything is fine, I’ll hold off on the Doppler purchase for now.

I’m so happy he’s swimming around in there.