A Planetary Bump.

I made myself take some pictures tonight-- despite the fact that my stomach now feels so huge that I have to crawl up the stairs on all fours--because I doubt I'll want to again before D-day.

Jason and I got a little crazy on Saturday night. Jason came up with the idea that we should go to Hobby Lobby (mind you, it was already, like, 8 at night) to get supplies to make Adelyn's first scrapbook. So we wandered the aisles of craft central until the store announced it was time for the last call on super glue.

I started putting it together this week, filling each page with all of her ultrasound photos and a few shots of me pregnant and Jason and I before our world was overrun by all-things baby. And I left the last 10 pages blank, for one last look at my planetary mid-section and--hopefully--some shots of us at the hospital when Adelyn makes her grand entrance.

I feel impossibly bigger each day I wake up. We went to the doctor yesterday, where I found out that Adelyn is already 3 pounds, 11 ounces and has a head full of hair that can be clearly seen through a 2d ultrasound and that I'd managed to gain four pounds in a mere five days. Behold the power of Easy Mac for breakfast.

And here's a shot of my poor, tortured furbaby Louie. He got scalped at the groomer's this week thanks to a neglectful mother who hadn't brushed out his mattes in a month. He's embarrassed and ashamed of the new 'do.

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30 Weeks.

It took more than seven months, but I finally convinced Jason that we needed to get a 3d/4d ultrasound. Because, you know, we can. From the very beginning of the pregnancy he was adamantly against them. He found them sort of scary and alien-esque looking and just plain unnecessary. And even though a part of me agreed with him, I just couldn't resist. I just couldn't wait two more months to see her in person when there was the teeniest, tiniest possibility that I could get a real-life first glimpse.

So yesterday, we chalked up the $100 and scheduled an appointment. And of course our beloved Adelyn--who's made it a habit thus far to do exactly the opposite of what the ultrasound techs were hoping she would do--was still in the breech position and spent the entire 30, expensive minutes with either a hand or foot or umbilical cord over her face. We never got that crisp, clear shot of our daughter en utero. I was disappointed at first--mostly that I'd spent so much time cajoling Jason into it only to spend our afternoon staring at a 3d image of amniotic fluid--but the more that I think about it, I've decided that maybe this is exactly how it was supposed to be. We got the smallest little glimpse of our daughter's face without giving the whole secret away. Or I'm just trying to make excuses for the fact that my impatience got the best of me. But we did get a DVD with a 5 second clip of her yawning, and that was worth the money right there.

And because I forgot to post it--her latest 2d ultrasound photo, from week 29:

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27 weeks, 3 days.

When we said her name at the doctor's office this morning she turned her face toward us.

Jason, the ultrasound tech, and I kept our eyes fixated on the screen, all of us repeating her name. With each "Adelyn" it became clearer that she could hear us, her mom, her dad, speaking to her. She opened and closed her eyes and her mouth, kicked her bony arms against the wall holding her in, looking desperate to get out, to stretch out and be free. Three more months--I hope--and she will be.

Getting ultrasounds has been by far the most amazing and strangest part of this pregnancy. Feeling her move is significant, yes, but watching a tiny hand push against your uterus while you feel that bump under your skin is entirely different story.

And each time we go, I feel that familiar sense of worry and panic. Growing up with a malfunctioning body will do that to you--make you distrust your insides. And being pregnant is the ultimate test of letting go of control. Your body is doing all the work. Your body is growing those bones and that heart and that liver and those lips and eyes, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it but wait.

My malfunctioning body has defied my expectations over and over with this pregnancy. Not only is Adelyn growing just fine--the main concern for patients' with Crohn's disease--she's big. Two pounds, 11 ounces at 27 weeks. That puts her in the 78th percentile for her size. Even though ultrasounds usually make every body part look like pure bone--often lacking flesh--I saw a glimpse of chub on her still miniscule cheeks. She's perfect. And judging by one of our ultrasound pictures, she's already giving Angelina Jolie a run for her pouty-lipped money.

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23 weeks, 1 day.

Adelyn, if you had any idea how excited and happy you have made so many people, simply by existing, simply by continuing to grow, you would have no doubt about what awaits you when you enter the world. I don't know a lot, and I certainly don't know a lot about being a parent, or children, but I know that if a 1 pound, 6 ounce, 9 inch long little person could inspire so much love, then everything is going to be more than okay. I can do this for you. Just, please, maybe if you could focus your acrobatics on not being breech so that I don't feel your adorable kicks right in my uterus? Thank you, little Addie Belle. Thank you for throwing my world upside down and existing.

We got to see her again this morning. Still in the 68th percentile for her size. Still the most amazing sight I've ever seen.

Later in the day I went to see my friend Morgan in Murfreesboro, in town from New York to meet her big sister's three-week old baby. I got to hold the baby, my first time doing so. She writhed in my arms and spit out her pacifier. And then I sat there and stared, afraid to move a muscle. Morgan and her sister laughed at my awkwardness, and then I promptly handed incredible baby Ivy back to her mother.

Watching Morgan's sister with her new child, I felt a new sense of calm come over me about this whole mothering thing. This woman spent years trying to have children--I remember the heartache even in Morgan's voice each time something went wrong, a miscarriage, another failed treatment. And then, suddenly, something worked. They were able to have a beautiful, healthy baby boy. Two years later, an equally beautiful and healthy baby girl. And then, three weeks ago, baby Ivy. And even though it had only been three weeks since she had a C-section, Morgan's sister looked so, unarguably happy. Even with two rambunctious toddlers and a newborn.

23 weeks and 1 day. I can't believe only four months ago I was looking at a urine-soaked positive sign, questioning whether my life was over. It's only just begun.

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The big one.

During my last ultrasound I was scolded for not coming in with a full bladder, so I made sure to chug a liter of water and a glass of orange juice this time before dropping trou and feeling the warm X-ray goo poured over my belly.

The ultrasound tech told me afterward that I didn't need a full bladder for this one. But that wouldn't be as fun as using every ounce of my energy to hold pee in while she pressed onto my stomach.

So for half an hour we got to watch our baby kick and squirm, twist and flip, while I tried my damnedest not to pee on myself.

The tech asked at the very end if I had an intuition about the sex. I said boy, because that's what I've said all along.

I was wrong.

Look at her.

She's perfect. Heart, lungs, spine, bones, nose, nuchal fold, arms, legs, fingers, toes. They're all there. And they're all perfect.

I'm too overwhelmed at the moment to write much. We went to breakfast afterward and started listing our myriad expectations for her. So far, we want her to be a drummer, like I always wished I was. A guitarist, like her dad. A dancer, because I wish I hadn't quit all those years ago. A feminist, because, duh, I wouldn't have it any other way. A daddy's girl. Tolerant and open-minded. A reader, since she'll be a Lavery and will have no other choice.

I have no idea who she'll be, but I know she'll be loved beyond measure.

And I'm sorry, daughter, for thinking all this time you were a boy. Really, I only thought so because deep down I wanted you to be a girl. I didn't want to jinx it.

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D-Day Countdown Begins.

I don't think I've been this excited about something since I was seven years old. It was Christmas Eve, and I was sleeping in my big sister's bed (she was NOT down for co-sleeping under any other circumstances), and my parents had just left the room after reading us 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and kissing our foreheads. That was the last Christmas I remember feeling that genuine, palpable nervousness over Santa Claus' imminent arrival. Every year after that it became less magical and more about waking up in the morning to get stuff. My sister and I lay in bed for hours trying to sleep, and even though she was old enough to see past the big Christmas lie she wasn't too old to play along for my benefit. It was perfect.

(And now, at 23 years old, I've obviously been enlightened to the real goings-on of Christmas. Even more, I've become more chained by religious obligation; I've wrestled with the decision of celebrating a holiday a love and that I grew up with even though I'm Jewish. The reality of it sucks out all the magic. That's something I really look forward to with having my own child, the ability to experience, even just vicariously, the magic of the holidays, secular or not.)

It's now Finding-out-the-Sex-Day Eve Eve Eve. On Monday, we go for the big ultrasound. Bright and early at 8 am. I'll be awake at 5. If I can sleep at all that night, because it's days away and I barely can now.

It will also mean that I'm officially halfway there. I just choked on my water a little bit.

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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.

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11 Weeks Pregnant

I have never been so tired. I am too tired to type, but I'm forcing myself, because I don't want to lose momentum on documenting this experience.

I woke up this morning after 10 hours of sleep and started to get ready to go have lunch with a friend. Twenty minutes later, I was on the couch, struggling to keep my eyes open. I canceled the lunch (the only chance I've had the past two weeks to do anything other than sleep and work and worry) and promptly fell asleep for the next two hours.

I woke up with a pounding headache. And, somehow, I'm even more tired than I was before.

So much for doing something, anything, on my day off. Back to the couch and my blanket and BabyCenter.com and Sex and the City re-runs for me.

I'm aching to see this baby again, for confirmation that all this shittiness and stress is worth it. I have to wait until next Monday for that reassurance, when I go for the nuchal translucency screening (which brings a whole new set of stresses along with it).

Since this post has been nothing but a bunch of whining--I'm not good for much else these past few weeks-- I'll add one more gripe.

I just finished Ayelet Waldman's Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace, and it left me with a new confidence that I just might be able to do this whole parenting thing after all. Why? Because Waldman, while a brilliant writer, drove me absolutely crazy in that book.

Not because of her controversial stance on loving her husband more than her kids, which is something I understand completely, but because the woman contradicts herself in nearly everything she says. She failed to transfer her sensual desires from her husband to her children (hence the loving him more thing), and yet she prays her son grows up gay so he will never replace her with another woman? What is that if not placing way too much of your sensual desires and expectations on your children?

About halfway through, I realized the book was driving me insane. But to Waldman's credit I kept reading because her prose is wonderful, and as an aspiring writer, I'll take any chance to read writing like that.

But if I'm a chronic worrier, then Waldman's worrying is borderline-psychotic. If I'm prone to worrying too much about what other people think, then Waldman has dedicated an ENTIRE NOVEL purely to defending her choices, rather than simply exploring them.

The whole experience of reading it just made me want to take a chill pill and stop thinking so much about every minute detail of my life.

So I guess it wasn't a total waste of time.

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