the updates keep being boring

It's been a bit of a roller coaster this week, the reason on which I will pin my absence of posts. But this morning, thanks to insomnia, I got up at 5am (after tossing and turning since 2am) and have some time to cough up a lengthy missive (yes, I think this is sleepless boot camp for the mother-to-be).

I got a stomach bug on Tuesday. Hum, stomach bugs and pregnancy are not a winning combo for more reasons that one. I was also trying to prepare for my oral licensing exam through the stomach bug situation. I will remember this week, mark my words. Probably mostly because I DID get my license! I can now practice my profession autonomously, which is a huge deal in my little world. I am thrilled.

I went to visit my OB last week. I continue to like her so much. She was once again very pleased with everything, and said so. It still feels a bit suspect to have everything be going well, but I'm trying to roll with it. She did send me for some blood work and the glucose tolerance test. I'm still concerned that I will fail my glucose test because of a family history of diabetes on both of my parents' sides. But let's wait for the facts to emerge, shall we. So far, no phone calls from the OB's office, although it's only been a week.

At the OB's, I looked at her while she was measuring my uterus and preparing the doppler for the symphony of the heartbeat, and asked "is there really going to be a baby?" She seemed to think so. "Well, there is something in there!" is what she said. It's still not entirely real, although the wiggling and kicking does help.

Oh, and I got a diaper bag. Received it in the mail this week. After much back and forthing, I chose this one. I'm sure gummy will approve (this is me being sarcastic about my own penchant for consumerism. Gummy for sure will not care). In a separate package, I received a whole whack of formula products. I'm not sure how that got to me, probably through signing up for one thing or another. It's nice to have though, in case my double A breasts don't deliver on their promise of milk.

So apparently, the third trimester is around the corner. I think there is nothing more to say after that. Except: !  

Viability!

24w1d today*. We have reached the elusive viability status. I beg gummy not to think this means it's time to make an appearance. But this was the next big milestone in my mind and now I've reached it. At the last OB appointment, I asked specifically about it. I thought that being in a smaller town, viability would be later, since there is no NICU at Pleasantville General Hospital. But the OB said viability is the same as it is everywhere, just that any babies looking to be born before 32 weeks will buy their mamas a ride in an ambulance to the university hospital 45 minutes away, or to the big city, or west to Fertility Treatment Town, my old haunt. Well I'm not planning on making the ambulance trip, but it's good to have the notion in mind of what would happen, and that gummy could live at this point.

At work today, I had the two extremes on a continuum of reactions to pregnant bodies. One colleague guffawed loudly and said "Wow Augusta, you have grown so much in the last few days! You have really popped!" And then later on, my boss stopped me in the hall and said "Augusta, I have to say I was looking at you in the kitchen and you can barely tell you are pregnant!" It just makes me laugh, since you know, I'm not feeling a tremendous amount of control over this. It's nothing I'm doing or not doing. I'm just growing a baby and I look the way I look. But it is a bit intense how much people are commenting on my body.

Speaking of work, it has continued to be super busy. I'm thankful for it, but it leaves me with less time to blog. At the beginning of December, I will be taking my final licensing exam. This one is an oral exam in front of a panel of three. I'm imagining it as nerve wracking as the Ph.D. defense, except this time, everyone in the room will be strangers. If I pass, it means I get my license and I won't have to worry about it while on mat leave. It also helps with looking for work after mat leave, since a job candidate with a license is preferable to one in the process of getting a license. Now if I can only start convincing myself that weekends are meant for preparing and not eating out and watching episodes of House.

Chicken thanks you for your sweet comments. She is well aware of how beautiful she is, but never tires of hearing it. She's a cat, after all. 


* I put a substandard bump pic on the gummy bear page of what my torso looks like at this point.

My girl Chicken

Dude! why is my favourite lap getting so small?

Chicken is not sure that the expanding belly is such a good idea.

Where is she supposed to sit?

She also wants to know why people write an FET instead of  a FET. If someone could explain it to me, I can transmit that valuable information to her.

I could get used to this

I had my first 'in office' OB visit this morning (my last one involved meeting my OB at the hospital). It went so well! She confirmed that the ultrasound results showed that the shadow was completely gone and there was nothing to worry about. Little SCH could still be seen, but she said that again, those were shrinking and nothing to worry about. My blood pressure was good. The fundus height was exactly where it should be. The baby's heartbeat was wonderful. She said gummy's weight estimation puts him/her at the 55th percentile. I told her I could get used to appointments like these, were everything goes well.

Oh ladies, it felt completely unusual (and frankly wonderful) to go in for an appointment and have absolutely nothing wrong. How many years of going to the RE and getting bad news after bad news, sprinkled with some good news that turns into bad news? Too many.

I asked about the sex of our gummy but it was not on the u/s report. At first, the resident seemed to say that I just wouldn't find out since there might not be any more u/s. When the OB came in, she said we'd probably do a growth scan at 30 weeks and be able to see the sex at that point. She intimated that the u/s tech was wrong to say that 19w4d was too early to visualize the sex. She said she'd send me somewhere else next time.

I also learned more about viability in our part of the world. It is, as in other first world nations, 24 weeks. I asked specifically if that was true in our little college town, and was told yes, since they transfer women to the big university hospital. The resident said she'd delivered a 23-week-old who lived. They will keep women delivering in Pleasantville starting at 34 weeks. I was grateful that Dr. Smiley explained all that, and that she totally got why I was asking. I need to get to the next milestone, I said.

I brought up the weigth issue, but it turned out to be a nonissue. When asked about it, my weight gain was described as "perfect".  Of course, I had been worried about it since, you know, it seems to be going up and up and up. The small remnants of anorexic Augusta start to voice their concern with any upward movement of the scale. But it was a tribute to my healthy self to hear that this is all unfolding as it should. At least, that's what I heard. Healing from the eating disorder has involved working towards eating as intuitively as I possibly can. It took more than a decade to get there, but I know it's been a great deal easier in the last 5 years. To know that I can do this part intuitively - the part about eating more to grow a baby - makes me see how completely I'm over that mindfuck. I feel really thankful for that (and yes, I might sing a different tune when I feel crappy about the baby weight once gummy is here). 

Well, I feel a bit like I jinxed things by congratulating the four amazing women who are recently pregnant. Almost as soon as I posted, I learned that La Fille's pregnancy was doomed, in more ways than I can really describe here. If you have any words of French in you (bonjour counts as a word), please go over at L'AMP pour les Nuls and give her a hug.

Halfway today

Yes, it's true. 20 weeks on the dot. Unfreakinbelievable.

A few things before I launch into boring pregnancy updates.

1) I LOVED your comments on my last post. Thank you so much ladies. I feel like writing that post helped me clarify some of the inner conflict I had pulling at me from within. And reading your comments helped remind me that we really all struggle with emerging from infertility into motherhood. We all (will) get there, somehow.

2) I am so thrilled by all the great news in blogland lately. A huge congrats to Egghunt, Ginger and Lime, J.J., La Fille who are finding themselves pregnant, after years of struggle and loss. I cannot tell you, women, how much my heart sings to think of you pregnant. And I also want to acknowledge those who are still waiting. In particular my dear friend Patience, who has had to watch everyone go first, and still doesn't get her turn to be a mom. I continue to hold hope for you, my friend, and can't even imagine the happy dance we will all do when the call finally comes.

Now for updates:

The anatomy scan was on Friday. It went very well indeed. I think gummy is the most beautiful fetus in the world. I was expecting to find out the sex of our baby, but the tech told me it was too early. At the time, I made as though I believed what she was saying, but in all honesty, I think it's hogwash. I know some of you have found out earlier than 19w4d, which is where I was at on Friday. I later talked to Sattva, who said she heard tell Pleasantville General Hospital had gotten into some hot water over revealing the sex of babies, and were now trying to avoid the practice altogether. It wasn't too big of a disappointment, especially when I got to see that gummy looked so healthy. I asked about the shadow, not expecting that anything could be said about that, but was happily surprised when the tech said she couldn't see it at all. She then volunteered that it was a nonfused chorion, the most benign of all three possibilities. How do you spell relief? (apparently, you spell it r-e-s-o-l-v-e-d n-o-n-f-u-s-e-d c-h-o-r-i-o-n).

I've also hired a doula to help us with the birth. When I thought about who Mr. A and I are as people, and how we handle our own and each other's anxiety, it felt like we probably needed the presence of a calming third influence in the midst of what's going to be a beautiful and likely painful experience. Despite the recommendations to shop around, I think I like the one I met on the weekend well enough to hire her.

I am wondering if the little sensations I feel sometimes are perhaps kicks from long legged gummy (this kid is going to run marathons one day). I've got the anterior placenta situation, so I know that it's supposed to take longer to feel the movements in this situation. One of my work friends described the movement akin to when your eye starts to twitch, and somehow, that was closer to what I had been feeling than gas bubbles. So, I think I may be feeling gummy move, but it's not with any certainty yet.

One last anecdote before I sign off. I went for a walk with a friend yesterday, and when she gave me a hug, she squealed and said she could feel my bump. I have not taken any pictures of the bump yet, but I think it might be time to start that. Watch for it in the gummy bear tab.

the pregnant infertile identity

Snippets of thoughts are swirling around. Will they actually come together in a blog posting? I think I've found the thread, with a little help from my friend (yes, that's you, the Scottish mama/psychologist).

We are in the car, driving up to a cottage for the weekend, and she says I'm not infertile.

What do you mean?

What she means, pointing at my (now visibly) growing bump is that I am looking like fertility incarnated. That what's going on inside of me is what fertility is all about. That my biology, and my social world, all think I'm as fertile as it gets.

She has a point. But I protest, of course.

I'm not about to give back my infertile badge. I feel like I'll be part of that club until death. Is that short sighted of me? Maybe. Probably. But at the end of the day, my body didn't create life. Yes, it is growing it as we speak. And yes, my body, my whole being will work hard to sustain this life once it joins us on the outside. 

But I'm still infertile.

I hear myself tell people I don't know well that this was a long awaited for baby. I do a double-take on myself when I say that it has been years of work to get here. What is that about? I look the same but I'm different, and I need the world to know it? I don't know. I just find it odd that it keeps coming out of my mouth. I go back to thumbing my rolodex of emotional patterns. Oh yes, I see. This is the one about deserving things only if I've absolutely worked my ass off to have them.

Don't get me wrong. I've long abandoned the idea that my infertility is psychosomatic. My psyche did not create this. No amount of relaxing would have brought us this pregnancy. But I do find it disturbing that my actions perhaps demonstrate that I fancy myself more deserving of this child than others since I've suffered so much for him or her. That's a tad effed up.

Is it that my experience of pregnancy is completely the one of a pregnant infertile? I don't think so. There are aspect I feel I'm experiencing like every other woman who has or is or will be pregnant, no matter what route she took to get there. I have the same worries (ok, perhaps magnified a bit). I've started to smugly rub my belly (yes, you can hate me). I'm interviewing doulas, and I've picked out a colour for the nursery (parma grey - farrow and ball), and I'm getting freaked out about giving birth.

And yet, I'm not ready to say that all has just gotten back on track with the pregnancy. This train didn't just jump the track, it piled up into a full wreck. And perhaps that is what I am holding onto when I cannot drop the infertile after the pregnant in my title. Let's not pretend there wasn't hell to go through to get here (and perhaps more hell before we get there - oh please no. PLEASE, NO MORE HELL!). And without going all psychoanalytic on you folks, this is perhaps a parallel with my childhood. There was a certain amount of shit that went down, all of which went unacknowledged by my parents and extended family. 15 years of therapy later, it appears I find it important to acknowledge the truth of what happens to me. Go figure.

So, I am pregnant. And I am infertile. Both of those are my truths. And I understand that to the outside world, I am just another pregnant woman* Very few know about the donor egg process we've been through and for now, it's very easy to decide who gets to know and who doesn't. But on the inside, I'm mostly still infertile and waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know enough to let hope in and go with the facts (inside my uterus = growing fetus). And I also know that this is entirely a miracle, that science, money, selflessness, another woman's eggs, good medical staff, lots of missed hours of work, enormous support from all of you, and a large measure of determination on our parts made it possible. And I know that if we lose this miracle, we can't just have sex to try and make another one happen.

I think I'm ok with living as a pregnant infertile. That's what it will need to be for it to be my truth, so I'll stick with it for now.    




*Did I ever tell you how much I dread being that woman to someone in the throes of infertility. Like I could just be sitting somewhere, and she is having the worse day ever after a beta of 1, staring down her 4th IVF, and then she sees me with my bump and I am her last straw. Funny how self-important we are in our worst fears.

week 18 - updates

Last week was full of pregnancy-related episodes that I'll recount here. If you are not in the mood for pregnancy talk, please feel free to skip it entirely.

 So, yes, the prenatal yoga was a trip. It ended up, not surprisingly, that I knew 4 of the 12 women in the class. One of them is in my closer community circle and I'm glad I had found out the week before about her pregnancy (through a few channels, including her friend writing on her wall something about her pregnancy - eeeeeekkk. I'm so afraid of that happening to me). I was surprised by how much it stung to find out she was pregnant. It stung just as much as when I was infertile period. I knew that becoming a pregnant infertile would not remove the infertile out of me, but it took that news to reveal it more completely. Truth is I'm very happy for this woman. And she, in turn, expressed in as few words as possible to protect my privacy, that she was happy to see me in the class. I've chalked up the stinging to plain old infertility reflexes, which will probably be in operation until I'm 80.

I also got to meet my OB last week. It appears that my streak of amazing luck with health professionals continues. Dr. Smiley was a-w-e-s-o-m-e. And young. Close to 10 years my junior, I would guess. I was a bit puzzled that I had to meet her at the hospital, and wondered why I wasn't meeting her at a medical office. I got myself there and it became evident that I was to wait in triage. Two women were being admitted. Like, to have their babies. And I was sitting across from them, in the same waiting room, feeling quite out of place. Dr. Smiley was very compassionate about my infertility history, and was keen to learn about the DE process in the U.S. She felt that the shadow on the last u/s was a wait and see situation, and that I shouldn't worry about it for now. She noted, as I expected, that she would send me to the big university hospital if there was cause for worry. I wasn't expecting it, but she did an u/s. I was so excited to see gummy. Unlike in the last 2 u/s, gummy was quite calm. Gummy looked like he/she had filled out a little bit, and didn't look quite as gaunt as our last peek inside. Dr. Smiley didn't take any measurements, but said the baby looked like an appropriate size for his/her age.    

The anatomy scan is booked for October 19. She felt that it was a good idea to have the scan at the same place as last time (Pleasantville General Hospital), so as to compare results with the 14w scan. She said that she may also send me to another place she likes to send patients if there is a need for follow-up.

There have been a few sweet occasions for revealing the pregnancy to close friends. One evening last week, we went out to dinner with a group of friends, most of whom did not know about our little miracle. A few of them knew about our struggles in some detail and were over the moon when I told them there was a fetus in there, pointing at my stomach. As luck would have it, some other dear friends were also eating at that restaurant. I shared the news with them and both husband and wife just started crying. It was incredibly sweet.

I've been excited and hopeful by reading of some great developments in blogland. My fingers (and aloe plants) are crossed that all continues to go well for you, dear women.

A riddle

Q: How can you tell that the lovely woman you've just met in your prenatal yoga class is not at all infertile?

A: She is 6 weeks pregnant


(From the vantage point of my 17 weeks, I was still feeling rather exposed to be affirming my pregnant state so early.  Going to that class was a big emotional hurdle to summit, but I did it and even enjoyed it!)

put it in a box

Thank you for your lovely, supportive comments and emails on my last post. I wrote it soon after getting the phone call from my doctor and still felt pretty agitated by it. I've since been able to find a more calm place to live inside myself. Since then, life has been very busy and there has not been much time to write posts, emails, or anything else. I had my second licensing exam last Monday and crossing my fingers that I passed. It is next offered in March, which won't work for me at all. Work has picked up this fall, which is nice, but it does take away from my blogging.

In the day or two following my doctor's phone call, I discovered that I didn't have anything left in me to put into active worrying. It's like a charity I've given and given to, and who keeps coming back for more. This time when they were at my door, I simply had nothing left to give. The first trimester and the SCH took it out of me, and now I can't do it. I can't spend my days and nights worrying about something that may or may not be real, something that may or may not be terrible.

So I put the information in a box.

Compartmentalization is traditionally known as a defense mechanism. When it is overused, it's not very healthy for the person. For example, if there are parts of you that you really can't stand and you keep putting those in a box, cutting off your awareness and the possibility of integration of all your parts (the ones you like and the ones you don't like), you are likely to get into some trouble, psychologically speaking. It takes a lot of effort to keep all those parts you don't like in a box, and that takes its toll on your functioning. You also might not come across as genuine to others. However, compartmentalization can also be thought of as a very useful, adaptive process. For example, if you're trying to get through a big project at work, and your job is hanging in the balance, it's probably a good thing that you are able put out of your mind the fact that you've had a fight with your spouse.

At this point, worrying about a shadow would be just that: worrying about a shadow. Of course it could mean all sorts of nasty things, but it could also be nothing. I'm sure that if it turns out to be something, I will do a great job worrying and fretting. But I'll leave that for the future, if that's even needed.

For now, I'm busy looking into strollers and wondering which cloth diapers we'll use. I'm also looking ahead at our first OB appointment on Friday. And I'm also in awe that tomorrow marks the start of week 17. Week 17???? How did that even happen? 

the good news/bad news phone call

And the circus continues...

The good news
It appears the little shits (SCH) are gone. "Almost completely resolved" were the words used by my doctor.

Awesome.

but there were new findings on the u/s

The bad news
Shadows were detected on the ultrasound, described as a thin membrane on the right side of the uterus.

Dr. Lovely said it could be 3 things:

1) An amniotic band: the most shitty of all prospects, these things wrap themselves around the fetus's body parts and constrict growth. This is apparently how cleft palates, cleft lips and club feet are made. And worse. Please don't google-image it. It's not pretty.

2) A uterine synechia: basically adhesions (fibroids, polyps), which seem to threaten babies less than the effing bands mentioned above. However, I did find a study that said it could lead to PPROM, placental abruption, or malpresentation (i.e. breach or other non-birth friendly positions of the fetus). Another study said it was not associated with complications.

3) A nonfused amnion: this third possibility, she urged me not to worry about. She said that it was too early to tell if this is a problem. Dr. google said it's related to chromosomal abnormalities in some cases.

Also, it appears that the placenta is low lying (but not considered placenta previa at this point). Luckily, I knew not to worry about that right now. As the uterus grows, the placenta tends to move up (well, it doesn't move, but the uterus expands making it seem as it is migrating north).

She advised that the restrictions recommended for the SCHs be kept in place until I see the OB on October 5 and/or my next u/s at 19 weeks. No gym. No lifting. No sex. Mr. A will be thrilled.

So, there. More exquisitely precise potential afflictions to worry about. I feel like I'm really excellent at worrying about things even without prompts. Really, I don't need tangible causes for worry, I do just fine worrying over nothing at all.

I just want gummy to be born alive. Healthy. Ready to grow into a child, an adolescent, an adult. 

office politics

Interesting what prompts one to share the news at work. While I had considered the timing carefully, and meant to start telling people somewhere between weeks 20 and 24,  it seems like life had other plans.

Some of you who have been reading this blog for a while now (bless you for wading through my excessive verbiage) will know that I am the queen of maternity leave contracts. It's an ironic position to be in as an infertile, but I'm not proud. Work is work, and I'll take it where I can get it. Of course I lust after my colleagues' permanent full time positions with cushy benefits and pensions, but when I go down that road, I steer myself back with the reminder that getting a job in this economy is rather fortunate. And I've been lucky to have good jobs, for the most part.

The job I'm in now has offered a number of benefits. Like it's nice to sleep at home during weeknights. I enjoy the people I work with, and I get to do some interesting work. My contract was set to end in October (next month) but sometime last spring, my boss told me they had found a pocket of money to keep me until the end of March 2013. She said they had all been very pleased with my work. Nice to hear.

In August, the two psychologists who had been off on mat leave returned to work. It made me a little nervous at first - I could see that it would be nonstop baby talk, and that I would have the priviledge of feeling like shit all the time because of it. Of course, I was pregnant myself at the time, but I wasn't ready to believe I would stay pregnant. So, APPREHENSION grew.

Turns out the two women are entirely lovely. Yes, they talk babies a lot, but they also talk psychology, and tv series, and frustrations with husbands, and lots of other topics to which I can relate. Like tofu. And shoes. While I had been friendly with lots of people at work, all of a sudden, I had FRIENDS at work. Sweet!

Then one day in early September, the colleague with whom I share an office closed the door and said she had to talk to me about something. Turns out she is returning from mat leave pregnant. Unexpected, she said, but feeling very pleased. When she got to saying the due date (one day after mine), I couldn't not tell her about my little gummy. Her reaction was a surprise. She jumped up and squealed, stating that we would be on mat leave together and that this was awesome. Her reaction moved me a great deal.

Our boss was as supportive of her as expected. Which means very. We have a stellar boss. But I quickly learned that she was looking for me to talk about my contract. When I finally met with her, she was so pleased to offer me a one-year extension, which I genuinely wished I could have accepted. I must say her expression was priceless when I turned it down and said why.

So while she didn't broadcast it throughout the agency, my boss did have to share it with some key people. I decided to share with all my psychology colleagues who were all wondering if I would be taking over for the upcoming mat leave. It's been really fun to watch people's reactions when I say that I had to turn down the offer, and then say why. So far, I think the best one was from one of the senior psychologists who said that my timing was off. I responded that after 3-4 years of efforts, I felt that now was as good as ever. She looked at me and just offered me her condolences for having gone through infertility. Bless her heart.

And this is how the word is getting out. I've started telling other people at the office, although I'm not in a hurry to do it. At the same time, it's been nicer than expected. I do fear having to untell, but at the same time, I'm holding on to the fact that this seems to be a reality right now.

I am pregnant

Can you believe it? I guess it's easier for you on the outside, but for me, I have to get used to it several times a day. It fills me with awe.

We went to Pleasantville General Hospital for the ultrasound yesterday. The last time we had to go there was for the D&C. We got there and Mr. A just said "I hate this parking lot - such bad memories." Yes, I had been thinking about that the entire drive to the hospital. Out of the elevator and into the corridor: a left turn leads into the day surgery area. A right turn leads to the diagnostic imaging clinic. We turned left last time, and right this time.

A lovely ultrasound tech took me into the room, and told me right away that she could see the baby and the heartbeat. My eyes still filled up. It's always a very intense moment for me, waiting to hear if the baby is still alive. She had a hard time taking all her measurements because apparently, we have a wiggly gummy. It's absolutely amazing to see this little being move around so much of his or her own volition. She asked if Mr. A was tall, because the baby has very long limbs. I'm actually the one known for her long limbs (I'm 5'10" with a short torso), but I had no genetic say in the creation of this baby. So we'll go with Mr. A (who is about 5'11". Our donor stands at 5'6" - so also not short). It made me wish I could call Sophie and tell her this.

When Mr. A was invited to join us, he asked right away about the SCHs. She replied that she would need to let the doctor talk to us about that. She quickly followed that by saying that is was very common, and that it wasn't much to worry about. She added that it's a concern when the SCH are bigger than the gestational sac, which, when we reflected on it later, thought she said that because the SCHs she saw weren't that big. Nothing in her nonverbal language, noted Mr. A, said that she was concerned or alarmed. Of course, we'll have to see what kind of phone call I get from the doctor on Monday. But right now, I feel very pregnant.

Still no maternity clothes. Some of my roomier pants and skirts still fit well. I know that isn't going to last, but I figure I still have a few weeks. For now, I am focusing all of my time at home on studying for my second licensing exam, which is on September 24. Lots of updates from work to share, but that will have to wait for a different post. 
 

Self-advocacy

I saw Dr. Lovely as planned yesterday. She was pleased to hear that there had been no bleeding. I started off with my big advocacy piece without delay. At first, she was gently suggesting that an additional u/s would not tell us anything new, that we would want to do that if I started to bleed but not really otherwise. I said that waiting a month to visit the OB seemed like a very long time, especially because I feel like a ticking time bomb. And also that this sounded like a reactive, as opposed to a proactive strategy. She listened. She's really good like that. I said that I wondered where the SCH were located exactly in relation to the placenta. She looked at the report from the imaging clinic, which is when I realized she hadn't seen the u/s at all. The report said the placenta is anterior, and the big mofo is on the right, while the little SCH is on the left. Ok, that helped a tiny bit. Perhaps the SCH is not ripping the placenta from the uterine wall as we speak.

I started asking about options. Could I not go see the OB earlier? She's really busy, I was told, and never even answered Dr. Lovely's query about recommendations for dealing with SCH. She said she would bug the OB office for an answer. Could she send my referral back to the large university hospital MFM clinic to see whether, now that I have a large SCH, they would consider taking me as a patient? She said she could try that. Could I get another u/s between now and the day I have to see the OB? Yes, she felt that was reasonable. When I said that the word on the street about the imaging was pas bon, she looked curious. What did I hear, she asked. I told her a few things, and she admitted that she herself had a bad experience there. Consensus! So she referred me to the Pleasantville General Hospital for the u/s, which will happen on September 14. She said it will be good to get a second opinion. I'll say.

In the appointment, we also listened to the baby's heartbeat. She laughed and mockingly scolded me for buying a doppler - after saying that she used the one at work all the time during her pregnancies (and she would, especially for the pregnancy after her stillbirth). It took a few minutes to find it and then there it was, loud as a crow. It still seems so amazing.

And amidst my questions about when the second trimester really, truly starts, Dr. Lovely declared that I had made it. Good enough for me.