Steady as She Goes

"So, any family history of breast cancer? Heart disease?"

"Yes, both," I said. She was plowing through a list of family history questions that, apparently, people do not typically answer in the affirmative.

"Diabetes? Stroke?"

"Yes, both," I said.

"If I had known she had so much baggage," The Boy quipped, "I'm not sure I would have gotten myself into this."

I expected my ob/gyn to look at him askance. Instead, she said, "Well, I certainly hope you're taking care of yourself."

I had my first "ob" appointment Tuesday. We tried to hear the heartbeat, to no avail. "This is the earliest it would be possible with one of these things," she said apologetically. I tried not to look concerned. "You just saw it on the sonogram last week, right?" I nodded. "We'll definitely hear it when you come back in two weeks." Again, I nodded.

"So, any questions?" She asked. And the answer was not really, since I have the Internet and use it rather liberally. "Just one," The Boy offered, "When do we get to have another sonogram?"

"At 18 weeks," she said, "And that's a really fun one. It'll look much more like a human being then, and we'll be able to tell what it is. You won't want to miss that one." And, of course, he won't.

Despite every calendar, online due date predictors and a sonogram she ordered to determine-- ahem-- gestational age, the good doctor insists that my due date is 5 days later than what everyone else says. Now, I realize, in the larger scope of 10 months, 5 days is nothing. Or at least it would be nothing if it didn't mean our baby is due not only a whole month later but in a new calendar year. When I inquired about the reason behind this difference, she said, "Well, all wheels are different. And since I'm the one who's going to be doing it every week, we'll go with mine."

Well. As soon as she would walk out, you can imagine we would not agree with that decision. "By the way," I would say to The Boy as I slipped my shoes back on, "we're sticking with December 30th."

"Oh, definitely," he'd reply, "what the hell was that about?"

So, our first parental act is mutiny against the ob/gyn's due date. Hopefully we're all wrong and it's earlier. Poor little Christmas baby. When the Rock Star Brother called to congratulate us he said, "Christina. Listen to me. Always buy separate presents. And separate birthday wrapping paper. Never give a joint Christmas/birthday party." Poor brother, I thought, born on Christmas Eve and a twin. He never had much of a shot at a day that was all about him. At least I can happily confirm there is only one bun in my oven.

"So far so good," she said as she left the room. Which are my sentiments exactly.

Expecting, but Not What I Expected

Everyone says if you wait until you're ready you'll never do it. That you're never ready. When it happened before, I wasn't ready because I didn't think I had to be. "It's not like all of the sudden we'll have a kid," I had told The Boy then. "We'll have nine months to prepare." This reasoning seemed to work on him, even if it wasn't completely sound. So, expecting what everyone says to expect, we didn't sweat it. I had heard it could take at least a year to get pregnant coming off the pill. I planned for it to take 6-8 months. It took two weeks. But I'm still convinced that one was over before it actually began. That doesn't doesn't mean it hurt any less, but it's something.

So many things about losing that baby surprised me. I used to think, were I to lose a baby, that I would be too terrified to try again. I thought I'd embrace drinking cocktails and work out until I was finally happy with my body before it happened for real. Instead, I wanted to try immediately. But of course, you can't do that. So instead, embarrassed, married, and longing for a baby, I hid Trojans in the bottom of my cart, face down, at Wal-Mart. I couldn't stand the irony.

Once everything was normal, we tried not to think about it, but I counted days and marked possibilities in cryptic initials in my Day Planner. And then I started taking tests 5 days early. I fought with The Boy because I was afraid he wouldn't be engaged like he was last time-- that he wouldn't allow himself to be attached until . . . I wasn't sure how long. I didn't believe I could be pregnant again, not already. Mostly I was scared. But this time, I got my first positive test two days early. Another one, with a darker line, came the next day, and one more, for good measure, the next. I don't think the blue line on an EPT test can get any darker. But we weren't excited yet.

The first person we told was a work associate of The Boy's we had taken to an O's game. She was 8 months pregnant at the time, and I drank $4 waters in rapid succession. We didn't have to tell, but he was dying to. A week later in Savannah with my girls, I begged off when everyone else ordered draft beer to go with their floppy pizza and finally asked for an O'Doul's. "Yeah, so I'm pregnant." I said. But it was so early. I felt like I might jinx it.

We told our families at 7 weeks, and I feared it would all be over then because that's what happened last time. But it was getting hard to fake that I didn't feel terrible, and news like that doesn't seem real when you keep it to yourself. Once the families knew, it was only a matter of time. News of the long-awaited first grandchild, first great grandchild does not stay quiet or local for long.

I am a little over ten weeks pregnant. At my first sonogram last week, The Boy had tears in his eyes. I strained to see the screen. "So is that the head?" I asked, pointing at the kid's feet. The sonographer was patient and explained everything.

"That black space in his head is where his brain will go!" She said, helpfully. Which is great, except that it means my kid doesn't have a brain.

So I've been waiting to talk about it, but I keep telling myself that waiting wouldn't make it hurt any less if something were to go wrong. We get calmer as days and weeks past. And as I eat fewer Saltines from day to day. I'm pretty sure the sound of crunching crackers on the other side of the bed is not an aphrodisiac.