Assuming I will make it to 40 weeks of pregnancy, I am now exactly in the middle. The baby is half-baked, like a pan of brownies that’s still too sticky to take out of the oven *g*
Considering our last experience with a horrible gynaecologist I was less than enthused about seeing yet another doctor, but at 20 weeks a structural scan is recommended to see how the baby is developing. We did want to have another look at this little one and we received a recommendation from the midwives of a ‘kind’ doctor at a completely different hospital, so one more try…
The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning these days is to press my hand against my belly and ask the little one whether she’s awake, too.
Usually she noticeably moves then, and I smile because
how could you not? There is another human growing inside of me! It’s still a
mind-blowing concept to me that she’s actually in there. My body holds two now,
I am less alone than I have ever been.
But in truth pregnancy has been isolating as well.
I had assumed the opposite, I was so sure this would
bring me closer to everyone around me, but maybe I was naïve. Other than my
mother and grandparents not a single relative of mine has congratulated us or
even acknowledged that there is a baby coming. The same is true for some of my
more distant friends. No calls, no emails, no texts, not even a Facebook like.
So many people who matter to me have been notable in their absence of saying anything.
And their silence sounds deafening.
Even with the people who are close, (and there are still those luckily!), it has been more complicated than I thought. Jo has never been pregnant nor does she want to be, so I am left with trying to describe to her what it feels like, but I’m not always sure I do it justice.
It’s like everyone is on one side of a mountain top,
looking at a normal, average sort of sunset. The kind that’s nice enough, but
there are hundreds of them. Only I suddenly find myself on the other side of
the mountain, and it’s storming there, strong winds are nearly blowing me over,
dark heavy clouds, the ground rumbles, and the sky, oh it’s brilliant orange
and violet beyond anything I’ve ever seen, it’s overwhelming and terrifying and
gorgeous!
But when I walk back to the other side and I try to
explain to the others watching the normal sunset what just happened to me, some
of them say ‘well it was your choice to go out there, what did you expect?’
Others nod when I tell them about it, but their eyes glaze over after a few
sentences. Even with the ones who try to listen, I can’t fully explain what it
was like. I desperately want to but I can’t seem to find the right words to
make them feel it, too.
https://i0.wp.com/meemamas.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/post49.jpg?fit=1920%2C108010801920adminhttp://meemamas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/onetranspixel.pngadmin2019-06-13 17:47:232019-06-13 17:47:24The other side of the mountain
At exactly sixteen weeks and two days pregnant, I felt baby Sunshine moving!
I had been trying to feel
something for weeks already, usually when lying in bed at night, pressing my
hand this way and that, trying to feel the slightest of sensations. A few times
in the last couple of weeks I felt like there was something, a buzz or tickle
or a soft little shift under my skin. But it was so small that it might as well
be imagined, and I just couldn’t be sure.
Until now! I was in the bath,
holding a hand on my belly, when I felt the fluttering feeling in one
particular spot. I kept my hand there, and it came back, I felt it again. And
again. For a good fifteen minutes I could feel the baby move every few seconds.
It’s different from what I
imagined, there is no discernible kicking yet at this point, it’s like a fish
swimming up to the edge of a pool. Like gently moving some popcorn from one
hand to the next. Small, barely perceptible taps. It’s like the tiniest elf is writing
in Morse code on the inside of my skin. I wonder what she’s saying.
I felt surprisingly emotional feeling it. Someone is alive in there!
https://i0.wp.com/meemamas.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/post48.jpg?fit=1920%2C108010801920adminhttp://meemamas.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/onetranspixel.pngadmin2019-05-30 17:32:562019-05-30 17:32:58Houston, we have movement!
Alongwith the NIPT test there was an option to check the chromosomes for the baby’s sex, and we chose to find out!
If we are to believe the old wives tales – I was very
sick in the beginning, so that means a girl. We swayed a pendula over my belly,
and it went back and forth, that means boy. I am mainly liking sweet things, that’s
meant to be a girl. But my skin has been clear this whole pregnancy, so that’s
a boy. One of those is probably right ;)
We waited two long weeks for the result, and then…
I have talked a lot about encounters with doctors and clinics on this blog. We have experienced everything from the mildly annoying to the truly bad, but never have we had something happen quite like this! So, buckle in, and meet a seriously horrible gynaecologist…
Different from the last scan in the UZ, this was a doctor who comes highly recommended, one I was hoping to have for the rest of this pregnancy, so I was feeling optimistic when we walked into the hospital!
