Yup, Still Pregnant

5-29-09

The night before my Wednesday doctor’s appointment—and thank you to the fine Richmond Clinic folks who got me in so promptly—I awake at 1:33 to make my second middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom. I return to bed. I close my eyes. I open them. Dang. Thoughts of my appointment the next day crowd my brain. I try all my usual insomnia combating tricks. I breathe deeply into my belly. I relax each body part. I move to the couch to get out of the bed rut. I think of the next chapter in my novel and the wacky adventures awaiting my main character. No dice. I also notice that my throat is scratchier than usual. Sick? Great. The light in our bedroom goes on. Mr. Crud wanders out into the living room.

“Your alarm just went off.”

“Oh no.”

I stumble to the bathroom and realize there is no way I can make it through the day. I email in sick. I swallow a few more times to be sure that I am legit sick and not just playing it up. Nope. Still hurts. Good thing I have a doctor’s appointment.

I think that I am handling my 3-day-old knowledge of my pregnancy well, but the fear lurks. It rears its head again after we arrive at the clinic and I am alone in the bathroom, pee cup in hand. I turn on the water. I do some yoga breathing. I pull out all my techniques to counter pee fright and have about as much success as I did with the insomnia. Not my day. I hear the nurses outside, directing people to other bathrooms in the clinic. This doesn’t help. Finally I eek out the smallest of samples.

“Fucking great,” I mutter.

I flash back to Dr. Rathke’s office when I am 8 years old and trying to force myself to pee into a cup. My mom red-faced telling me to “just go already.” (Note to self: This does not help.) Oh pee shame, why must you follow me into adulthood? Eventually I was able to pee, but it involved a return trip to the office after collecting a sample at home. I bet my mom never imagined herself chauffeuring her daughter’s pee around, but such are the wonders of motherhood—or so I’ve heard.

The nurse intercepts me on my way back to the exam room. “I’ll take that,” he says.

I hand it to him sheepishly. “Is this enough?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

I tamp down the urge to spill my tale of pee woe and TMI myself onto some sort of Bad Patient list at the clinic. Mr. Crud looks up from the paper.

“You okay?”

“I think so.” But my stomach is dropping. I want to barf up the chicken noodle soup I just ate for lunch. I pound more water in case another pee test is in order. So much for staying cool.

Dr. Awesome enters, now about 7 months pregnant. “How are you? Are you excited?”

“Suddenly I’m afraid that I’m not actually pregnant.” I say. What if I hallucinated the line? What if it’s gone? What if I’m about to get my period right this moment?

“We’ll find out in a few minutes.”

Dr. Awesome lives up to her name. We craft a strategy to keep Mr. Crud and I sane over the next few months. I’ll have an ultrasound around 9 weeks, a bit later than the last time and after the point at which I lost Dewey.

“At that point we’ll be able to see more than just a heartbeat,” she says.

As part of my ritual, I confirm once again that it is okay to continue my yoga practice and to sweat as long as I’m feeling okay.

“Yes, yes it is. Don’t start doing anything new. Like don’t start doing like two hours of yoga a day 6 days a week.”

“I already do 2 hours of yoga 6 days a week,” I say, my heart skipping a bit.

“Then don’t do 4 hours.”

She tells me I can keep it up at the current level or back off a bit. I already have. No more jumping back for me. Uddiyana bandha? I’ll see you in February.

She urges us to keep busy, to let ourselves be excited about the pregnancy.

“I think it will be fine. The other two were caused by different things. There’s not a pattern.”

I think of the missed miscarriage message board that I looked at a few days ago and the varied tales of woe and confusion. “So many things can go wrong though.”

I vow to stay away from message boards.

“Am I considered high risk?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Well, you are considered elderly because of your age. But so am I. My due date is 2 weeks after I turn 35.”

“Elderly, eh? Nice choice of words.”

“I know, right?”

Dr. Awesome will be out on maternity leave for most of my (theoretical) second trimester but for the time being we plan to work with her when she returns. The thought of finding another doctor or midwife exhausts me. All the doctors we have worked with have been terrific, but I like that my doctor has a nose piercing and lives in my neighborhood and sometimes shows up at the same yoga class as us. My gut tells me that she is my doctor and in these cases I am trusting my gut.

Dr. Awesome has other patients to see. We ask all our questions. I get a prescription for pregnancy-safe anti-anxiety medication (thank you for existing, hydroxypam!) and we’re on our way.

Tonight we are going to a favorite restaurant to celebrate.

“You can get any sparkling water you want,” Mr. Crud says.

“Maybe I’ll get sparkling water and a cranberry juice,” I say.

Celebrate good times indeed.

People told: Dance professor in my office who is also pregnant—it just slipped out
Friend and confidante extraordinaire, Trista
BFF from the college years, E