All is Well...Again

11-12-09

The moment when Dr. Awesome presses the Doppler stethoscope to belly never fails to get my heart racing. Are you in there, Purvis? Everything okay? The day of my appointment sends me into further fear spirals, culminating in a sobbing session in the locker room showers when I’m sure that all is not well in there, that Purvis has fallen victim to the latest iteration of my bad pregnancy luck.

The big moment arrives. I recline. Dr. Awesome measures my belly. “27 inches and you’re 27 weeks. Perfect.” She drops the measuring tape and grabs the stethoscope from its jumble on the counter. She goo-s up my belly and rubs it with the cool metallic circle. Purvis’ swift gloob-gloob-gloob-gloob sounds loud and clear. I breathe my (now ceremonial) sigh of relief.

“About 140 beats per minute,” she says. The steady beat slows and quickens. Wait! It changed! It slowed down a bit. Shit. Does that mean??? My mind races. I try to keep my eyes from widening horror movie style.

“You hear how it’s varying? That’s good. It means the baby is moving around and the heartbeat is responding to the activity. Was that a kick?” She presses her hands over the space above my belly button.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Did you feel that?”

“That I felt.” I’m not feeling all of Purvis’ kicks, which may explain my recent panics. Dr. Awesome encourages me to start counting kicks—just as all the preg books predicted she would—and I feel a mixture of excitement and dread. What if this kick counting becomes another way for me to freak out with worry? Don’t blame the kick counting, lady. This stream of worry has been hunting for an inlet before you ever heard the words kick counting.

“I think the kick counting will reassure you.” Dr. Awesome says. “Put your feet up and just tune in.”

Fast forward to Monday, my first official day of third trimester-dom. Yahoo!

“You think I can do my kick counting while reading the newspaper?” I ask Mr. Crud.

“You’re supposed to just concentrate on the kicking so you don’t get distracted,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right.” But who has time to just lay back and wait for kicks? I have a precious 4 hours between the time I get off work and my early bedtime to get my own kicks, i.e. read the newspaper, cook dinner, read some Stieg Larsson, and catch a little TV. Now I gotta drink a cold glass of water—which will surely lead to increased midnight bathroom breaks—and do nothing? Sheesh. Some of the preg books advise kick counting in the morning and the evening. I wonder what women of leisure have the time to do that. Lest you think I’m being flippant about a vital part of my fetus’ health, the jury is out on kick counting. It’s been shown to have little effect on pregnancy outcomes, but still most doctors recommend it as a way to hopefully catch any problems with the fetus.

I compromise. Reading the paper is too distracting, but I can handle mindless TV while feeling for Purvis’ 10 kicks. They come quickly, number 10 jabbing my right hip about 10 minutes into The Soup.

At the appointment, I ask Dr. Awesome about my size again. “I keep seeing these women who are as pregnant or less pregnant than me and they look huge compared to me. I just look like I have a beer belly.”

“You’re tall,” she says with a shrug. “All women show differently. I can sympathize. I was small for my pregnancy and people weren’t afraid to let me know it. It has nothing to do with the size of the baby.”

Why am I so hung up on appearances? The right kind of pregnant look is one, which connotes a healthy mom and baby, yes? People aren’t giving me a hard time about it. Some say I look small for the six months of pregnancy under my belt, but nobody has gasped in shock at my small-ish bump.

Plus I’m feeling pretty good. At prenatal Pilates I do not chime in when SATC lady complains about her squished gall bladder or night sweats. All in all, I’m feeling fine. And in my feeling fine, I feel a little left out of the pregnant lady club. “Well you can join my club because I felt great too,” my mom says.

“You’re lucky,” Dr. Awesome says. “Enjoy it.”

I will. And I will look forward to when the prenatal Pilates conversation turns to the inevitable H1N1 vaccine because that’s an annoying situation that all of us can relate to, both whether or not to get it and, if we want it, where to find it.

Of all the questions I pepper Dr. Awesome with during our appointment I forget the one that comes up every morning and night: bicycling. When should I say when to my commute option of choice?

My older coworkers are clearly worried. “You be careful,” one grandfatherly prof says every night when I head out. “You’re biking for two.”

The worry is rubbing off on me. I start to imagine scary scenarios where I slip on leaves, lose my balance and fall into traffic, or stop short and go over my handlebars. I remind myself that all sorts of activities can be hazardous to the pregnant: cars, walking, the f-ing flu. (I’m set to be jabbed H1N1 style tomorrow afternoon. Yay?) In fact, I’ve had the most close calls with falling while going down steps in boot cut pants. Somehow my foot is adept at finding a way to get caught in the hem. I now approach staircases warily and take a wide-legged stance like a bow-legged cowboy before descending.

In the locker room a woman overhears me telling my locker room buddy of my cycling dilemma. She pops around the corner. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

She was round and proud at the time when I was just starting to embark on pregnancy number 3. At the time I wondered if she would become my sister-in-motherhood or a reminder of another failed pregnancy. She cycled until she was looking very pregnant. I sent her silent “right on-s” every time I caught her mounting her bike.

“How long did you ride?” I ask.

“Until midway through my third trimester,” she says. “Then she was pressing on my bladder and I couldn’t make it home in time.”

She suggests I check out a discussion thread on a local biking blog. The thread is linked to an article about cycling with a bump, which is vague and conflicting in its recommendations. Some ladies stop after the 12th week since the pelvis can no longer provide complete protection for the fetus. Some ride on until their bellies are bumping against their pedaling legs. One respondent tells how she rode her bike to the hospital. Probably not OHSU, I think. That’s a hell of a hill.

I feel reinforced in my decision to keep on biking for the time being. Purvis does find her way to my bladder quite often but it’s not yet unbearable. I take it slow and easy. I hum the B-Sharps hit of yesteryear, “Baby on Board.” I cycle like I am riding for two. Because as elder prof reminds me, I am.

This week in preg-dreams: While I still await my dream of birthing a cat or alien, my unconscious is batting around my apparent fear of abandonment. When I’m not being rejected by high school beautiful people all over again (when will those dreams end?), Mr. Crud is abandoning me in various ways, leaving me pregnant and wandering the streets of Portland in search of him. “But I’m pregnant,” I bleat. The next morning I tell Mr. Crud of my latest version of the abandonment dream. He reassures me that he isn’t going anywhere. Then I do my best to not take out the dream residue of hurt feelings on him throughout the day. (“But it wasn’t ME who left you,” he says. “I know!” I say, still eyeing him warily.)