Nuchal Translucency Screening

I'm sitting here looking at this picture, examining this child's every fold and black and white crease, the already impressive size of that bottom lip and the uppitiness of the nose, and I can't help but think this is insane.

How does every mother not fall into an existential crisis during pregnancy? That thing up there? IT'S IN MY STOMACH. What? How? Seriously? Are you fucking kidding? I HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET IT OUT???

I sat in a mixture of amazement and panic yesterday during the nuchal translucency screening.

A lot of women find themselves inconsolably crying when they get the first extended glimpse of their child.

Each time it hit its little hand out to swat away the ultrasound tech's movement, each time it kicked its legs against my cervix and slid up and then back down the slope, I laughed harder.

It's the same thing that happens when we sit on the couch and watch Louie and Sampson fight over a chew toy for hours on end.

It was bizarre. Amazing. Nerve-wracking. And hilarious.

As for the all the fun health stuff, all the tests have --miraculously-- turned out just fine so far.

I'm sure every pregnant woman has these doubts of anxieties of something going wrong, but let me explain just why the previous statement is so miraculous:

For the last 15 years, I have never once been pleasantly surprised by my body.

To me, doctors' offices and hospitals are sites of terror and pain. Period. You don't walk in those doors and come out smiling.

When I was 10 years old, I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. That came after years of weighing 60 and 70 pounds, of throwing up nightly, of misdiagnoses and confusion.

Next came more than a decade of the same thing, peppered with new diagnoses like Ulcerative Colitis. Severe anemia. Strictures. Osteoperosis at 20 years old--the result of years of forced Prednisone.

To sit in that doctor's office yesterday, to hear the word "negative" repeated over and over again, to walk out of those doors actually smiling--not holding back tears or cursing God or my intestines--felt almost perverse. This isn't the way things are supposed to happen to me.

I have to wait a week for the full result of the down syndrome screening (the combination of the nuchal ultrasound and the blood test), but the measurements so far look, and I quote, "perfect."

All the trisomies--negative.

The baby's size--right on track.

Abnormalities--nadda.

The heartbeat--stronger than normal.

And the results of my own blood test put my iron count right ABOVE the notch I would need an iron prescription.

I just pray that my body doesn't decide to betray me once again.