Dreams and Spilt Milk

My dreams were starting to get interesting. No more easy dreams about old boyfriends and falling off cliffs, now my dreams were starting to intrude upon my waking life. New flavors of ice cream were invented, I drowned in chocolate pillowcases, and in one particularly bizarre incidence, a salami sandwich tried explaining existentialism to me. I ate him, so I got the last laugh in the end.

Ok, I'm kidding about that last one, but I really did have some uncanny dreams beginning with the very night I told Ty I was pregnant. That night in la-la-land, I gave birth to a fully developed baby. When we went to check whether it was a boy or a girl, there was nothing. No sex organs at all. I was confused, but not quite proportionately to how confused I should have been. I had all these baby clothes, and my height of confusion was, "Well should I dress this child in blue or pink?" So I pulled out a cute pink dress and put the baby in it. The poor child began screaming wildly, protesting with every nerve in it's body. So I took the dress off and put a blue jumper on. Immediately the baby calmed down, and even smiled. I felt my confusion wash away and turned to tell Ty we had a son.

I wonder if dreams have any meaning? Could we be having a boy?

Every pregnant woman complains about three things: odd cravings, not being able to sleep, and her crazy, wacked-out hormones. Now, I'm a very even-keeled person, and take great pride in being fairly predictale, and well as emotionally stable. And throughout this pregnancy I was not noticing any hormone changes to contridict that. Until the Milk Incident, that is.

I go through hobby phases. One-third of the year I'm obsessed with scrapbooking, another third it's beading. This particular season I was really into crocheting. These hobbies all drive Ty batty because of the bills I can rack up, and crocheting is no excepting to this rule. At this moment I was working on $60 worth of really nice wool-textured yarn, making one of my brothers an afghan. Ty and I were comfortable on the couch, watching something mindless on TV, (probably football) and I was working on the afghan. I had dairy cravings that day, so was alternating Milk Duds with sips from a large glass of milk. Football interests me about as much as any girl, and I was concentrating on my blanket. Single crochet, single crochet, chain three, turn - whoops! Knocked over the milk! Right...onto...my...lap! Oh! It gets worse! The other half emptied into my basket containing the remainder of the rolls of yarn!

It was a slow-motion moment, "Noooooo!", but I reacted quickly. I grabbed some paper towels and went at it, dabbing here and there, trying to salvage what I could. I was the most upset over the balls of yarn being soaked, because I wasn't sure how to wash those. A few seconds into my cleaning, I looked up expectantly at my husband, who was still focused on his football. He must have noticed me glaring at him, because he turned and said innocently, "What?"
"Well I don't know, why aren't you helping me?"
"(Snorts) You don't need my help, it's not that big of a mess!"
I finished without another word and stomped upstairs, seething. I changed into my pajamas, fully intending to go to bed without speaking to him the rest of the night, when something caught my eye.

Something purple, and creeping into my cleavage.

The dreaded stretch marks. Upon further investigation, I realized they were taking over most of my body. My frustration and anger morphed into humiliation and despair and I burst into tears. Ty, baffled by my stormy exit, was coming upstairs to find out what he had done. Seeing me now, sobbing on the bed, he gently sat down on the side of the bed and asked,

"Honey? Are these pregnancy hormones?"

One Little Heartbeat

Enter second trimester! I couldn't have been more thrilled. Pretty soon I was going to feel those flutters I kept hearing about, and even sooner I'd get to hear a heartbeat! Ty and I couldn't wait to hear signs of life. For now, there wasn't a whole lot going on. I still had a flat tummy (well...), and although my boobs had gotten bigger, that was pretty much it. I didn't feel pregnant; I wasn't nauseous, I wasn't over tired, I wasn't running to the bathroom every five minutes. All these symptoms I kept reading about and I wasn't feeling any of them. I kept reassuring myself that this was normal, and peeked at both my positive pregnancy tests from time to time to make myself smile.

My prenatal visits were at my mom's house. Like I'd mentioned before, as a young girl I used to love watching the beautiful ladies with their lovely bellies come over to my house for their prenatals. Our first prenatal was one of the most exciting moments of my life - it was a childhood dream come true! Ty and I arrived a little early, breathless and grinning from ear to ear. I was 12 weeks along, according to my calculations. My mom and her fellow partner Midwife and best friend, Terry, greeted us with their own silly grins. They were about as excited as we were to start this amazing mother-daughter bonding journey. Businesslike, they gestured towards our chairs, and we sat. It was all basic information, nutrition guidelines, and what they expected out of us as well as what we could count on from them. Finally we got to the good part, listening to the heartbeat! I laid on the physician's table and pulled up my shirt. Mom plopped some freezing cold gel on my belly, and turned the doppler on. She searched for the baby's heartbeat, spreading the gel over the better part of my exposed skin. We all listened hard, but didn't hear anything. Elusive child, stop playing around! Hold still so we can hear you!

We couldn't find the heartbeat that day, but Mom and Terry shrugged it off saying they didn't always find the heartbeat that early. Having the luxury of having my mom as my midwife, I could stop by in a week and we'd try again. Which we did, and still no heartbeat! It didn't worry any of us, but we were disappointed. A week later, at 14 weeks, we all felt sure we'd hear one this time. Again the gel made an appearance, and covered my belly with about an inch of gooey-ness. Still nothing. I looked into my mom's face, and saw her putting on her "so what" face, and knew that she felt concerned. She prodded the skin under my belly button, feeling for my uterus. I tried to stay calm, but felt alarm creeping up. I looked and Ty and knew he was feeling the same way. Mom cleared her throat. "Your uterus should feel bigger than this at 14 weeks, I think we may have our dates off." I shook my head, I was tracking temps, mucus, intercourse, and all sorts of unnatural sights; I knew exactly when this baby was conceived. "What else could it be?" I asked, knowing the answer. "Well," Mom replied, "I think we should get an ultrasound and make sure you're pregnant." I wasn't expecting that. Doubt that I was even pregnant? What about the pregnancy tests? I would have made a case for my absent period, but that in itself wasn't unusual for someone with PCOS. For the first time in this pregnancy, I felt unsure.

I had wait a few days for the order for the ultrasound. Mom had a friend who was a nurse-midwife, and could order them for me. On the drive over to my mother's house to pick up the order, I noticed a very young puppy on the side of the road. It was just starting to snow, and the puppy wasn't moving so I pulled over. He was dead, a hit and run, most likely. I pulled some plastic bags out of my car, wrapped the puppy in them, and put him in my truck. His tiny body was stiff, frozen in the cold. I cried on the way home, for the puppy, and for the life inside me that I wasn't sure existed. I buried the puppy in our side yard, and felt dismal and pessimistic the rest of the day.

Ty came with me to our ultrasound. We were nervous; afraid that there would be no baby, and simultaneously excited to see our baby if there was one. The technician was kind, and helped me lay back. She tucked a towel into the top of my pants and plopped some goop on my tummy. I smiled at the warmth, thinking that there were some benefits to this visit. The minute she placed the doppler on my stomach, we knew.

We were about to be parents!

That little baby wiggled around like there was nothing going on. The baby measured a week behind what we thought, and had a good strong heartbeat. The tech turned it up so we could hear it clearly. I pushed the puppy to the back of my mind and relished the beauty of life!

Pregnancy vs. Drugs

I have to admit something I'm not proud of in order to appropriately draw an important parallel. Earlier in life when I was dabbling in rebellion and "finding myself", I was tempted by the lure of drugs and alcohol. My first alcoholic drink was red wine, consumed at the wee hours of a New Year's Eve morning in the attempts to "catch up" to the rest of the party-goers, who, by the way, were already 90% passed out. I was running late because I worked that night, and was anxious to take advantage of the glorious (and naive) permission my parents had generously given me to attend this party. Arriving breathless and excited at around 3:00 am, my mostly drunken host offered me cheap red wine in a plastic cup - all that was left. He was the only one awake, and I was the only one sober. Both effects were resolved in the next hour, and my new status, one that stayed with me until dawn offensively crept in, was clutching the porcelain curves of a bachelor's dirty toilet.

Those particular party attendees were a group of people I wanted to fit in with, so a few years later when they introduced marijuana to me, I eagerly accepted. My first joint was remarkably unexciting. I didn't like the taste, and I hated the burning in my throat. But still, in the name of popularity I tried again. And again, and again, until finally the sought-for high hit me. We sat around and laughed at nothing, or just stared for hours at inanimate objects, intermittently giggling or reaching for another hit. Coming down from the high was the worst part. It was always followed by a headache and a sense of restlessness, and finally, I get to my much anticipated parallel.

Pregnancy is a little like getting high. It doesn't always happen on the first try. You have to try again and again for the drug to take effect, but once it does! There's nothing else like it; you giggle for no apparent reason, you're always rooting around for the next snack, and it's best shared with friends. There's a crash in pregnancy too, once you've gone around and told everyone you know that you're pregnant, there's no one else to tell. It's a little disconcerting, really. You find yourself purposefully rubbing your belly or pretending your back hurts just so someone will ask. You plead with your husband to take you into Babies R' Us to 'look around' when in reality you're just hoping the cashier will ask you when you're due. You join online blogs so you can chat with other women in the same boat...

So there, I've found a way to connect druggies with pregnant women. And you thought it couldn't be done!

My point is, now everyone knew that we were pregnant, and I wasn't sure what the next step was. Was I supposed to feel sick now? Where are the flutters? Should we start on the nursery? I was restless; I was excited with no where to expel my energy. Mostly, I was impatient. I wanted that baby NOW!

We waited.