Fat and Happy

Ah, 2009! Even the sound of it, with it's long-vowel and final ringing consonant, seems so much nicer than the sharp little noises of 2008. So nice to be in a brand-spanking new year, full of hope and waiting for it's history to be made.

I am entering this year with my own new hope, less anxious and not quite so nerve-wracked. I think the (almost) weekly ultrasounds have made it so much easier - I can't imagine going a month between scans! I think the fear of early miscarriage is so fraught for those of us who are afraid that's all we'll ever have that any possible concern about frequent ultrasounds is easily outweighed by the relief of knowing things are going well. I know that at a certain point I'll have to learn to live without them - but my OB is very understanding, says I can come in for a quick doppler any time. Maybe I can even get by without buying one of my own?

Of course, tomorrow's scan is the nuchal translucency test, and that has it's own set of fears and worries, but for some reason I'm not too wound up about it. It is what it is, and there's nothing I can do about it between now and tomorrow afternoon.

As for being a forty-year-old pregnant lady, I can only say that it is very different than being a twenty-nine-year-old one. While I know that a second pregnancy - okay, with infertility taken into account, it may not technically be the second actual pregnancy, but whatever - tends to "show" sooner, I am shocked at how pregnant I already look. When I was pregnant with my daughter I wore regular clothes until about five months. Then I wore floppy things and didn't even buy maternity clothes until seven months. Now all I can fit into are floppy things, although one of the advantages to being older is that I can afford nicer floppy things than I could have back then.

Although I don't have strong pregnancy symptoms (like nausea or sore boobs, although I think nursing for 14 months took so much out of my boobs nothing can really affect them any more) I seem to be starting in on the pregnancy-related consequences. The veins on one of my legs are snaking into prominence, and the skin on my stomach is insanely itchy. I am as burpy as a frat boy and as achy as a great-great-grandma. (Yep, my husband is one lucky guy!)

Of course, it's all nothing. I don't care, I'll wear the thick stockings or whatever. It's amazing to even think that I am twelve weeks (and one day!), that I am almost out of my first trimester already and that I feel pretty good most of the time. I thought I would be wracked with worry day in and out, but somehow things just feel right. Even though I know that anything can happen at any time, it just isn't something that haunts me. I think a lot of it has to do with getting past my own personal fertility disaster zone - the early weeks. I can only imagine that it would be harder if my losses had been later.

At this point, I think of those possibilities on the same level as the getting-hit-by-a-bus scenarios. Yes, terrible things can happen, can and do. But, somehow, the Abstract Terrible Thing That Probably Won't Happen just can't wreak as much emotional havoc as the Terrible Thing That Actually Happened and May Happen Again.

Of course, I'll let you know if I still feel that way after I get the results of the nuchal scan.