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Weeks 3 to 4
I’m Pregnant!
My maternal instincts were right. The home pregnancy test turned positive before I finished peeing. The doctor reconfirmed my status the next morning, sent me for a battery of blood work, and gave me my cheat sheet: No raw anything. No alcoholic anything. No more mid-day cappuccinos. I’m a sushi-craving, wine-loving, caffeinated full-time working mom. Only 38 weeks to go.
Lately, I have been convinced there is no heartbeat. My first sonogram is less than a month away, and I seem to have this inner voice telling me there’s no real life. We’ll get to the OB's office, they’ll spread around the familiar, sticky cold gel and search for the little grain of rice, which they’ll find, but it will be still and silent. The nurse will summon the doctor who will tell me, as he has told so many women so many times before, that the fetus is not viable.
But that’s crazy. Everything is progressing just fine. My progesterone level—now measured twice—is exactly where it belongs. My breasts are swollen and sore precisely as they should be. (Luckily, Victoria’s Secret exchanged my recently purchased, twice worn, 34B bras for 36Cs.) My mood is askew, as I find myself noticeably impatient with Henry. I get weary at day’s end, yet sleep lightly on and off throughout the night. Like the last time I was pregnant, I have no morning sickness, but much to my surprise I have virtually no appetite. This is very unlike me: I love food. Dinner is one of the highlights of my day, and everything that precedes it—the imagining, shopping, preparing, plate arranging—are some of my favorite activities. Now, some food is fine, less food is better. Perhaps I am subsumed by the fear of gaining more than 50 pounds again.
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So this morning, for clarity, I attended a meditation class. My attention to this task comes and goes, along with my faith in its value, and I have never been able to maintain a daily practice of sitting still. “No worse to try,” as Henry would say, so I spent an hour in the Unitarian church basement breathing into my chakras. I concentrated on the ball of hot white light, the energy that ought to emanate from my inner being.
Nothing.
I focused on my breath and tried to redirect my mind away from the day’s agenda. It worked, for a moment, then left me again.
Then, at the end of the five-minute sitting, my two fingers pressing gently on my Power chakra just below my navel, I felt a steady drumbeat. Quick, in sets of two. My pulse, perhaps, so I laid the other hand along my neck to make sure I wasn’t racing inside. Nope, my heart puttered slowly and gently at a slower pace. The rhythm beneath my fingers was much more rapid... a rhythm entirely its own. I pressed my fingers in a bit more firmly and I was certain, with every fiber of my being: the heartbeat.
I’m acutely aware that there’s a greater chance of miscarriage this time around, and I’m prepared for that as much as anyone can be. (I can already imagine consoling myself with an entire bottle of red wine.) Anything can happen and more will be revealed, but come what may these next few precarious weeks, one thing was true today: The fetus is alive.
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ARCHIVE:
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