Oh Baby!

By the end of next month, my “baby” girl will be 13 years old. Thirteen?! Years?! Sigh. It feels like only a few years ago that I heard her heart beat for the first time and marveled at how the fast pace mirrored my own excited rhythm. It certainly couldn’t be more than a decade since I first saw her grainy image grow from a single black dot to a tiny, tadpole like shape before a fully functioning human being. A mini-me that not only survived a traumatic birth via emergency C-section but endured by test after test, surgery after surgery before coming home to live with us and all of our ineptitude. We relied mainly on instinct (and a ton of calls to the nurse line) to keep her alive longer than a goldfish or houseplant keeping our fingers forever crossed… I can’t believe how much she’s grown. Sometimes I still can’t believe she’s here, that she’s mine. One of the few things that reminds me this is not a dream is when the ultrasound tech asked Don & I if we’d like to know.

“Know what?” I asked.

“The sex of the baby” she replied.

“Yes!” we both said.

“You’re having a little girl” truth be told, I can’t remember if she said it exactly that way because Tayla was NOT a little girl… Born premature, she still weighed 6 lbs, 8 oz and measured 19 inches.

The tech pointed to the screen, “see, it’s not just the lack of a penis that tells me it’s a girl, you also have to be able to identify the ovaries. Annnnd there they are!” She beamed like my baby’s ovaries were something the tech had been working on for months and finally unveiling for the first time, for our approval.

“My baby has ovaries” I thought. What a personal thing to say to us. How embarrassing for her… it’s a good thing she can’t discern words yet. I mean, I know women have ovaries and it stands to reason that we are born with them but she’s not even fully developed yet! I don’t know how I thought she’d get them… maybe order them off of Ebay? They’d arrive sometime after puberty, possibly in a pill form? Maybe a suppository? I don’t know, the whole thing seemed so strange to me.

Here I am, nearly 13 years later with the same unexpected news…

I have been on birth control for years, so I haven’t had a period since… I can’t remember the last time and several weeks ago I found out I am pregnant again!

I had been tired and sick for weeks with no sign of getting better. Had some tests done and SURPRISE!

“Is this baby flicking me off?” I asked the ultrasound technician. “Don’t you start giving me an attitude this early, you hear me baby?”

“Um, no. You’re having a boy.” She said.

“Ohhh, then I guess that’s not a finger?” I asked. “You’ll fit in just fine baby” I whispered to my belly.

Judging by his size and other various bits of information, I am 15 ½ weeks along and Noah David is due on September 29^th, my grandma’s birthday.

I am so excited and pretty scared too. I wanted to keep it on the down low until I’d hit a viable gestation period but I don’t want to give into my fear & superstitious-ness. I made it through the toughest part, the first trimester. I am however considered high risk, for many reasons. Any pregnancy after age 35 is considered a “geriatric pregnancy”. This is the medical term. Seriously? You don’t think pregnant women are emotional enough? Gee, I feel as big as a house, I cry at nearly everything and now you’re going to add the fact that I’m too old to safely have a baby? Don’t forget to lecture me about giving birth to an orphan! Assholes.

Another reason are my health conditions. I am diabetic. I have arthritis. I have a thyroid problem called Grave’s disease along with high blood pressure and depression coupled with anxiety. I think I must be the equivalent of an intense game of Jenga…

I am being closely monitored though. Weekly, actually so at the first sign that something is not right, we’ll be able to catch it. Still, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed!

Ps. I know this was supposed to be Slapstick Sunday, and it turned out to be more of a slap on the back/pee on a stick Sunday… I hope you got a chuckle out of the post anyway!