It seems like this is the beginning of something. Something that has been pulling on me to start or try...but despite it being the beginning of the year, the rest of my life seems really smack dab in the thick of things.
Today, I am 30 weeks pregnant with my second child. My son, Owen is 18 months old. I just finished reading a few memoirs and everything inside of me suggested that I do the same. Right now. Before the Pregnesia and the inevitable loss of memory (or, as we have all learned from our own parents, selective memory) expectedly creeps like it does with each birth.
I "know" that this baby is a girl.
Because of my ridiculously close relationship with my mother, I really didn't want to miss out on that kind of a relationship with my own daughter. Phone calls about boys, recipes and shopping for a wedding dress....I'm just not the kind of woman that could just show up, shut up and wear beige...like I probably will at Owen's wedding one day.
Why then, is it almost impossible for me to believe that she is, in fact, a girl?
I'm over 35, so I am called, "Advanced Maternal Age." This term is quite ridiculous and only adds to our culture of fear around the whole subject of birthing in the United States...but I digress, and I'm sure I'll get into all of that later.
But since I am "diagnosed" as such, our insurance pays for all of these extra ultrasounds and visits to fancy perinatal specialists. For my husband and I, it simply means that we get to see the baby more often, for longer ultrasounds and an early guess at the sex.
At 12 weeks, the perinatal specialist, who incidentally, looked more like a doctor on TV then a real doc, guessed a girl, with what we thought was quite a bit of confidence. At 16 weeks, we paid a little boutique in Buckhead, to give us a definitive answer and take some pictures. At 20 weeks, the perinatal specialist confirmed, once again, it's a girl! And back to the boutique last Thursday, to get the sweet little 3D and 4D shots of the little Sparkle inside of me...I asked again, "it's still a girl, right?
Yes.
It seems overkill, I know. But I'm not the "wait to be surprised" type of girl. That doesn't even make sense to me, really. I mean, the day that they told us that Owen was a boy, was a surprise. It was like Christmas! It just wasn't on his birthing day, that's all. I had a lot of "surprises" that day as it turned out. I was cool with the nursery being boyish already and having some blue things around to seal the deal before he came.
By the way, I still don't know the difference between 3D and 4D.
So, it's a girl. And until last Thursday, nothing seemed real. I've been so tired, so engaged with taking care of Owen, I just hadn't made that leap (that came much earlier the first time) of going from being pregnant, to having a baby. I'm there now. I like it here.
At first, you are so obsessed with yourself. The miracle. The reality. The impending change. And it's not just your belly that's pregnant. Your hair is pregnant. Your teeth are pregnant. Your hands are pregnant. My nose was so pregnant the first time, I didn't even recognize myself.
With Owen, early on, I remember thinking, "Today I won't be pregnant." "I won't talk about it or complain." "I won't look at babycenter.com or babygap.com." But it never worked. One pukey or weepy moment later, you were reminded of your "condition," and thus, pregnant again.
But now, after the nausea, the fatigue and incessant weeping. I am having a baby. A baby girl.
We call her, "Sparkles."
Now, I'm Dreaming of Sparkles...
La,
Cheri
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