| 17 weeks |
[Mar. 26th, 2009|02:20 pm] |
how very different chronicling a pregnancy is when you have experienced a loss--my own laziness is partly to blame for my lack of updates, to be sure. but there's also been (for me) this sense of 'if i talk about it, it may go away' thing and so it's been easier on all fronts to just not say much. and i know i'll probably regret this silence, once enough time passes that i cannot acutely remember how this pregnancy has felt.
i wonder how the paths of anxiety cross for people who have experienced pregnancy loss at different points in their lives. how different is it (or isn't it?) if you've had a loss, but most recently had a successful pregnancy and are now pregnant again from having a successful pregnancy, then a loss, and then become pregnant again? hmm, maybe something more visual would make more sense. say, situation A: loss-->successful pregnancy-->pregnant again vs. situation B: successful pregnancy-->loss-->pregnant again. do the folks in situation A feel any more confident because their most recent experience was positive and ended with a real take-home baby? is the fear of loss lessened by the psychic distance from it? or is impossible to really ever get far enough away from it?
although we've safely moved out of the first trimester and the odds are of losing this baby are relatively small statistically speaking, i still feel on edge. a little. i suppose 80% of me feels that probably this one will all work out--but i can't help but continue to push back the threshold of when i'll really feel okay. at the beginning it was all about making it past the point of previous losses. then it was seeing a real live baby at our first OB appointment and scan, and then at the NT scan (about 11-12 weeks). a few days ago the OB found the heartbeat on her doppler--we've been doing this about once a week at home since around 12 weeks, but there's a different validation when it happens with a medical professional in the room, you know? so we have successfully passed several milestones. but now i am holding my breath until we have the anatomy scan, which will happen on april 14th, when hope will be just shy of 20 weeks. if everything seems okay, maybe THEN some of the doubts will go away???
we're hoping to find out the sex at the anatomy scan, and if we do, it may help alleviate a different kind of anxiety--the naming of a child. if we're able to find out, we'll only have to choose one name. i love names and honestly i am still pinching myself that we're to the point of even considering names for another child. but if there is a way to feel anxious about something, i'll find it. it's true that i've had baby names picked out since i was about 10, but 'susan' and 'nancy' don't really hold the same appeal to me now (can you say "Eight is Enough" fan?). neither do Anastasia, Thomasina or Svetlana. choosing quinn's name happened somewhat organically--i still read through baby name books in case something fabulous jumped out at me. this time, we have what i suppose are front runners for both a girl and a boy, but i don't feel 100% sure about either of them. and the boy doesn't have a middle name yet. a combination that i like would give the kid initials that spell a word--nothing foul, but i'm still not sure how i (or he may) feel about it. my biggest crux right now concerning a boy's name is that there's nothing on the list that i feel especially emotionally connected to. some baby name book that i read recently mentioned how parents can feel stumped for naming a second child because you already used your most perfect, exceptional name. and i think that's where i am right now. quinn is a family name, plus a name that survived my childhood obsession. her middle name, brigid, is one i liked for a first name, but no baby of ours gets a "B" first name, since the initials would be "BM." sorry, not gonna do that to a kid, no matter HOW much i like a name. but brigid also gave her/us a loose connection to a paganized Mary, and so it felt right.
this time around i am full of worry about name regret. i very much love our girl name, but wonder it will be the right name (should we have a girl). one way to solve this, of course, is to go into the birth with a list of names, and then matching the baby to a name. this makes oodles of sense, and although we didn't do that before, i think, in theory, it's the best way to go all around. but.....then i also worry that the last-minute pressure to decide will cause even more stress (and add in hormonal stuff and maybe physical and/or mental exhaustion to that stress). and THEN i worry that i'm jinxing us by talking about names before a baby is out and breathing.
in related but less neurotic news, we haven't officially told quinn that she's (hopefully) going to be a big sister, but she's been clued in for a while. we have been talking about it generically, i.e., "if you have a little brother or sister, you'll have to share XY and Z," and i have gotten some library picture books that address impending sibling-hood. so although we have never told her she's (hopefully) going to be a big sister, of late she has taken to telling other people this fact. kids at storytime. Mr. Sam, the storytime librarian. it's made for some interestingly awkward conversations (and i just realized i forgot to tell hope about this one). quinn was telling storytime friend Ava (and btw, there are 2 Avas that attend this storytime. we refer to them as The Avas, as in 'do you want to go sit by The Avas?') her big sister spiel and Ava's grandma looked to me, probably both for a mental and visual confirmation of this news. although i am far from thin, i don't *think* i look pregnant most days, so i could see Ava's grandma internally trying to put the pieces together. at this point i offered that indeed we are hoping that quinn will be a big sister in late august. then i watched as she quickly calculated how pregnant she thought i should look to be due in august. to put her out of her misery, i said that quinn's other mom, my wife, is pregnant. the wife part must have totally missed her radar, because then she said, "oh, is there a stepmom?" and i said, "no, it's my partner who's pregnant; quinn's other mom." she apologized for not catching on sooner, but i think she was already a little freaked out by my hairy legs seen via my cropped pants.
quinn is also quite adament that she's going to have a sister. whenever we say the "if you have a little brother or sister..." line, she immediately cuts us off at that point and says, "SISTER." i am not convinced that she knows anything here, and if i remember correctly, i think some friends of ours with a daughter quinn's age went through a similar thing with their second baby, and it turned out to indeed be a brother and not a sister. we've tried various comebacks of consisting of language that includes "we don't get to pick," and "it could be a girl; it could be a boy" and "mum has a brother and it's GREAT!" but she has not been fazed by these retorts. in fact, we may as well not even be talking. a boy will be a big adjustment for us, but i think we're more worried about how quinn may handle it all. just 19 more days until we find out, if little Berry is up for showing us the goods. so just about 2.5 weeks for the next milestone....
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