I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually made my birth center appointment a few weeks before I conceived. It was supposed to be a “preconception counseling” and women’s exam appointment, since Joey and I were in the talking/planning stages of starting our family, and I just felt the need to make sure there were no unknown problems with my body.
Right. No problems there.
A friend of mine teases me that with all my baby-related research and planning, I jinxed myself into getting pregnant. I was convinced that I was jinxing myself in the completely opposite way, planning and plotting away and then my ovaries would say, “That’s so cute, you made plans!” and then contrarily deny me the fondest desire of my heart.
ANYWAY.
When I called the birth center after the first positive home test, they wanted me to reschedule for a later appointment, saying that if I did that, we could hear the baby’s heartbeat. So, although I was in desperate need of a medical person telling me that everything was fine, I agreed. And have been clinging to the date July 18 with much hope ever since.
Yesterday? I took my own sweet time getting ready for the appointment, because I had a date with my baby and I wanted to look nice. And I had a whole entourage along; Joey, of course, and both of our mothers. I got a friend to babysit my littlest sister for us, so there was slightly less mayhem than there could have been.
There was still plenty of mayhem, though. Our mothers wandered about the birthing center, taking pictures (it is a very cute place, a yummy Victorian house with a very antique, girls-only vibe) and examining the decor, and discussing how how there is no way that they feel like GRANDMOTHERS. Joey sat quietly, after discovering that no, there was no section of the ancient wood floor that he could stand on without producing horrible creaks and groans at every shift of weight, and read a fantasy football magazine.
So fun was had. BUT. The nice midwife who was examining me uttered this sentence: “Hum, you really are too early along for us to hear a heartbeat today. We’ll try, but I don’t know why they didn’t schedule you for a couple weeks later.” Even the fact that she was guardedly optimistic because I was “so slender” didn’t make up for the fact that I had to suffer through a pap smear, an internal exam (and no, I really couldn’t relax anymore than I was, I SWEAR) and the drawing of my precious blood, and there was NO BABY HEARTBEAT TO MAKE IT BETTER. Also, we don’t know how exactly we are going to pay for all of this.
The nice midwife understood, though. She suggested that if I was ‘in the neighborhood’ in two or three weeks, I could stop by and they would hook me up to the Doppler without an appointment. Which means that in a few weeks, we will be driving an hour out of our way to be in the neighborhood. She also had someone give me contact information for a sonogram place, where for $95 I could go and see the baby and its heart beating. Midwives must have a finely tuned sense of when a pregnant person is mentally freaking out, because I swear the worst external panicking that I did was to ask quietly if not hearing the hearbeat meant that anything was wrong. Which, given my amazing propensity for freaking out, I should get some credit for.
And we all went home (really, we went to Joey’s parents house) and I proceeded to throw up, then layed on the couch and obsessed. I even suggested that I have a sonogram for my birthday, but my husband was having none of it. Because the baby is fine, he said, and we will save the sonogram for when we can tell the gender, and blah blah blah sensible-cakes.
My mother commented on how wonderfully we even each other out. I agree, really, but at the time I sarcastically commented something like, “Why, because I’m neurotic and he doesn’t care about anything?”
And he still made two separate runs to the Jade Cafe to get me egg drop soup.
In less crabby news, woo-hoo! My mamma is officially moved here! She and my baby sister are staying with Joey’s parents until she gets everything settled. Our mothers get along like long-lost sisters, and are similar in more ways than I can count. They have no end of fun together, and as Joey’s dad remarked, “Now there are two people to cook dinner!” Which is funny, since neither of them really cooks much. But now I have more people to baby me! And they are both really good at that.
