pregnancy

Week twenty-five

After living the past several days in an “Are you effing kidding me?” fog, today I have been treated to a handful of digital dispatches from Nashville (with love) and a box sitting at my front door containing OH MY GOD, ARE THERE COOKIES IN THERE? And yes, yes there are. Were. Okay, there are still some left, technically, and I’m sorry, but I just cannot remember what I did with them so I guess…

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pregnancy work

Week twenty-four

Yesterday evening while I was at work, a summer storm rolled through (from the east, apocalyptically enough) and the sky rumbled and crackled louder than it has in months, making me jumpy and making the ear-of-corn-sized baby inside of me flail around like a kid who can’t swim who’s just been tossed into the pool. I hope to get one of those kids who’s fascinated by but not afraid of thunderstorms, so he can teach…

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pregnancy the manfriend

Week twenty-three

This week has been blessedly free of medical freakouts and frantic internet searches leading to endless threads of panicked women posting their diagnoses and speculating about what they mean. In other words, this week has been a breeze. Okay, sort of. My body is starting to do some crazy shit that is taking its toll on me. It feels sometimes like my organs are in danger of falling out, either through my gut or through…

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pregnancy the family

Week twenty-two

There was a moment during today’s early morning ultrasound (big thanks to the Mid-South Maternal Fetal Medicine for squeezing us in at such a late notice) when I felt the bulk of worry lift off me. I squeezed Ray’s hands as the tech, who was so nice and so thorough, went organ by organ, noting how everything looked great, all of it right on track in size and function. That bright bowel the Flinn Clinic…

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pregnancy the family

Modern medicine

Last night my dad told me my grandmother’s dog Jake had been hit and killed by a car. This isn’t an uncommon thing where I’m from; the dogs are free to roam all over the farm and they chase cars speeding by on the highway when they get bored. It’s frustrating but that’s how it’s been my whole life. I called Grandmaw to check on her and see how she was doing. Jake was her…

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pregnancy

Week twenty-one

I’m a day late with this post. No time yesterday but today I’m convalescing and trying to get over a sinus infection, so I’m here at home, stressing out over my to-do list and shoving toilet paper up my nose. Bleh. I’ve made lots of phone calls today to try and put a dent in the things I need to take care of, only to be stymied at every turn. To console myself, I have…

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dreams pregnancy

The latch

I had a dream about the baby last night. He was big and white and bald, and sitting in someone’s lap next to me, drinking from a bottle. I instantly began worrying that he was drinking formula, and wondering why he wasn’t in my lap, breastfeeding. Where had I been? How had I allowed him to have formula when the plan was to breastfeed exclusively? And so on. So I took him into my lap…

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pregnancy

They tell you to enjoy it anyway, even though it might get taken away

This week the rollercoaster has not been terribly kind. Friday, just a couple of hours before I had to leave for work and just a few minutes after I published that last mopey post, I got a call from my midwife. She told me that the follow-up ultrasound we had mid-week had found a still-bright bowel (boo) but also — a new finding — a two-vessel cord. That means we’re being referred to a perinatologist…

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pregnancy

Week twenty

Here we are at the halfway mark. In some ways I can’t believe it’s here already, but then I remember how slowly the time passed early on, when I had to keep this delicious secret to myself. And while I’m still worried about the ultrasound issue (we had a follow-up yesterday and the bowel is still bright — although to my lay eyes not nearly bright as bone, which would indicate a more severe problem,…

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