A kid and a kidney

Right off the bat, let me say that the good news is that I don't have a baby yet.  But the even better news — the news that makes me weep and laugh and leak a little joyful snot — is that Danae, much-loved blogger of the much-missed Hardscrabble, does.

I don't know the details.  All I know is that I am happier than I can say without resorting to goofball clichés like "my heart is full to overflowing."  (Happy enough not to mind when one slips out on its own.)  Danae and her husband endured what seemed the saddest of endings — multiple failed IVFs followed by a single Hail Mary cycle at a top-tier clinic, the cautious excitement of an early pregnancy, and then a miscarriage made all the more heartbreaking by the knowledge that it had been a last-ditch effort. 

Like the story of any infertile who has to stop short of a child, but more so because I love her, to me it all felt so senseless.  It never felt right.  But this news does, at last.

...

In news far more picayune, our vacation ends tomorrow.  Since we were not especially eager to travel far given what happened last time I ventured from home in the third trimester — and, yes, I bought trip insurance — we've spent the past week at a family resort a comfortable 90 minutes from our house.  (Exactly as good as it sounds, by the way, and I'm told the human body can function perfectly well with the kidney that will remain after you've sold your other to pay for your stay.)

With the hospital located between home and here, I've been able to keep all of my doctor's appointments.  That has been the only inconvenience my pregnancy has imposed, so it's been a wonderful week.  A strange week, though, as it has been brought to my attention by our fellow guests that at 31 weeks, I do not look pregnant.

There's a zip line that runs from the back of the main inn building on down through some trees to the lakeshore.  I'm sure the kids all love it, but so do the adults, especially after cocktails, especially after dark.  (To my disappointment, no one took me up on my suggestion that they try it after setting themselves on fire.  Maybe I'm not cut out for a leadership position.  I must not have done a good enough job explaining how much fun it would be.) 

I have been asked on numerous occasions whether I've tried the zip line.  "No," I would answer incredulously at the beginning of the week, thinking they must be joking.  But they weren't!  Why wasn't I trying it?  What was I...chicken?  "I am seven months pregnant," I would squawk, chickenishly, at which point the asker would direct a horrified look to my midsection, as if I were either gestating wee Thumbelina herself or manufacturing a phantom pregnancy just to get out of signing up for the low ropes course.  Which I would totally do, I assure you.  (The lying, I mean, not the course.)

If the shelf of my breasts so overshadows the projection of my abdomen, and to my chagrin it still does; if the rest of my body remains unbloated; if I look improbably svelte with my weight gain of 16 pounds to date; who am I to explain?  As the week wore on, I confined myself to compressing my lips and simply saying, "No," offering no further illumination.  One jovial red-faced gentleman thought to encourage me.  "You just need to drink more," he offered.

Well.  Clearly!  As he said this, it hit me that there was a certain advantage in looking merely plump, and I had squandered it: No one here knew I was pregnant!  If I'd played my cards right, I could have spent the whole week drinking my face off.

...

I'm up to two non-stress tests a week, and an OB visit, a growth scan, a diabetic consult, and a biophysical profile every two weeks.  There is a doula to be hired, a hospital tour to be arranged, a complement of snow-white onesies to buy, and a giant box of those cunning squat Avent bottles, carefully hoarded for the last three years, to scuttle.  And everything, everything's fine.  Even that last lonely kidney.

Posted by Julie at 11:38:46 AM in Jesus gay, I'm pregnant.

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A kid and a kidney

Right off the bat, let me say that the good news is that I don't have a baby yet.  But the even better news — the news that makes me weep and laugh and leak a little joyful snot — is that Danae, much-loved blogger of the much-missed Hardscrabble, does.

I don't know the details.  All I know is that I am happier than I can say without resorting to goofball clichés like "my heart is full to overflowing."  (Happy enough not to mind when one slips out on its own.)  Danae and her husband endured what seemed the saddest of endings — multiple failed IVFs followed by a single Hail Mary cycle at a top-tier clinic, the cautious excitement of an early pregnancy, and then a miscarriage made all the more heartbreaking by the knowledge that it had been a last-ditch effort. 

Like the story of any infertile who has to stop short of a child, but more so because I love her, to me it all felt so senseless.  It never felt right.  But this news does, at last.

...

In news far more picayune, our vacation ends tomorrow.  Since we were not especially eager to travel far given what happened last time I ventured from home in the third trimester — and, yes, I bought trip insurance — we've spent the past week at a family resort a comfortable 90 minutes from our house.  (Exactly as good as it sounds, by the way, and I'm told the human body can function perfectly well with the kidney that will remain after you've sold your other to pay for your stay.)

With the hospital located between home and here, I've been able to keep all of my doctor's appointments.  That has been the only inconvenience my pregnancy has imposed, so it's been a wonderful week.  A strange week, though, as it has been brought to my attention by our fellow guests that at 31 weeks, I do not look pregnant.

There's a zip line that runs from the back of the main inn building on down through some trees to the lakeshore.  I'm sure the kids all love it, but so do the adults, especially after cocktails, especially after dark.  (To my disappointment, no one took me up on my suggestion that they try it after setting themselves on fire.  Maybe I'm not cut out for a leadership position.  I must not have done a good enough job explaining how much fun it would be.) 

I have been asked on numerous occasions whether I've tried the zip line.  "No," I would answer incredulously at the beginning of the week, thinking they must be joking.  But they weren't!  Why wasn't I trying it?  What was I...chicken?  "I am seven months pregnant," I would squawk, chickenishly, at which point the asker would direct a horrified look to my midsection, as if I were either gestating wee Thumbelina herself or manufacturing a phantom pregnancy just to get out of signing up for the low ropes course.  Which I would totally do, I assure you.  (The lying, I mean, not the course.)

If the shelf of my breasts so overshadows the projection of my abdomen, and to my chagrin it still does; if the rest of my body remains unbloated; if I look improbably svelte with my weight gain of 16 pounds to date; who am I to explain?  As the week wore on, I confined myself to compressing my lips and simply saying, "No," offering no further illumination.  One jovial red-faced gentleman thought to encourage me.  "You just need to drink more," he offered.

Well.  Clearly!  As he said this, it hit me that there was a certain advantage in looking merely plump, and I had squandered it: No one here knew I was pregnant!  If I'd played my cards right, I could have spent the whole week drinking my face off.

...

I'm up to two non-stress tests a week, and an OB visit, a growth scan, a diabetic consult, and a biophysical profile every two weeks.  There is a doula to be hired, a hospital tour to be arranged, a complement of snow-white onesies to buy, and a giant box of those cunning squat Avent bottles, carefully hoarded for the last three years, to scuttle.  And everything, everything's fine.  Even that last lonely kidney.