Scott and I were discussing my pregnancy today. It is funny how you forget the tough stuff and only remember it being blissfully happy. Scott does not forget. He labels the trimesters as scary, nice, and grumpy. It's not that we're complaining....we have a beautiful baby boy. It was totally worth it.
My pregnancy began on Scott's 30th birthday. Most men would have some sort of celebration on that day. Instead Scott got to hold my hand while our eggs were removed, masturbate in an old hospital bathroom, and wheel his semi-conscious wife back to our car. I did take him out for lunch, but I don't know how good of company I was. Days later I had to ask him where we went. We hoped that we would be able to look back at that day as a present to him....and we do, because one of the embryos created on his 30th birthday became our son Jack.
Being that we had thought about eventually getting pregnant for seven years, we were excited to tell our families. We made a shirt that said "Big Sister December 2009" and went to Scott's parents house with Lily wearing it. The reactions to that shirt were priceless. Scott's parents initially thought it was a hand me down from someone else, but the date tipped them off to the pregnancy. My mom stood in stunned silence trying to process the information. My brother ignored the shirt even though we knew he had seen it. I think he was too scared to try to guess what it meant. And his girlfriend asked when we were "getting a baby." The obvious question as that's what we did before.
Five days before my initial ultrasound I started bleeding. I was sure I was losing the baby but because we were on holidays in another city, my fertility clinic couldn't really help us. The morning of the ultrasound was so scary. When they pointed out that little heartbeat, my own heart skipped a beat. How could you already be in love with something so small. They pointed out another gestational sack that no longer had a heartbeat. I was sad for a moment for that baby, but knew that there was a chance there would be no heartbeat at all and so I celebrated the fact that there was. We began to show people the picture of the ultrasound. We couldn't keep it a secret any longer.
At ten weeks I woke up to a rush of blood. I ran to the bathroom and was shocked to see how much blood I had lost. I called the OB/GYN at the hospital and she suggested that I wait until morning and then call the clinic. I did NOT sleep. In the morning we had another ultrasound. We saw and heard the heartbeat again. (Scott pointed out that the sound wasn't actually the heartbeat but the machine creating a sound from the ultrasound. Sometimes having a diagnostic person in your family isn't too fun. ) I had bleeding off and on for three weeks and ended up having to go on bed rest for two weeks. Super scary the whole time. Many sleepless nights and ultrasounds later, the bleeding stopped.
The second trimester was wonderful. It was nice to be big enough that people could tell you were pregnant but not so big that you were uncomfortable. I felt beautiful. It was incredible. We went on vacation to Vancouver Island. We hiked, we swam, we relaxed. It was blissful.
I don't think I was grumpy in the third trimester. Perhaps my co-workers would disagree. Scott certainly would. I was due December 15th but I was sure that "she" would be born on November 30th. I was sure it was a girl all along. So much for mother's intuition. November 30th came and went. I now thought I would be late. My mom was really overdue with me and I thought I was in for the long haul. When my water broke on December 2nd, I had no idea what was happening to me. I thought I had peed the bed, but was amazed when I kept peeing the bed over and over. And whoever is telling you that there is no whoosh when the water breaks...well, they're not telling you the whole truth.
During my whole infertility journey, I thought the positive pregnancy test would mean success. But the fear and the stress never went away until I held my baby in my arms. I thought I would relax after the first trimester, but I didn't. They say that a baby is viable after 30 weeks, but that didn't do it either. Labour was long and stressful. It had it's moments of fear. I had to actually hold him to know that we had made it.
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