Thursday 26 May 2011

Preggie post

FAIR WARNING: while I'm hardly graphic, if you're very squeamish about women's biology or under 13 years old, you may find one or two things TMI.

The first of many posts about Baby. You'll probably get sick of them. Luckily, that's your problem :)

You may especially get sick of the non-gendered pronouns I'm going to use, but we don't want to ruin the surprise of the baby's sex until the birth, and referring to a person without reference to their gender is not straight forward in silly English (or most languages I know of, actually). So I'll be using:
Ze - he/she
Hir - his/her
Although it may sound foreign to you at first, I find it a little bit less clumsy than "they" and "their" or "his/hers" and "s/he".

We are very, very excited. Steve's wanted children for as long as I've known him, and we'd been officially trying since last year.

Because I have PCOS, we weren't sure how long it would take to conceive, and I was convinced we'd need some sort of medical help.

That is why, when I was indescribably exhausted by the end of every day it didn't occur to me that it may be because of being pregnant. Then, when I was sick a few mornings in a row I thought "I'd better do a pregnancy test to exclude it and not get anyone's hopes up". I'm optimistic like that :)

The first test was positive, although it was an old and expired test, and I was so very weary of getting ahead of myself - especially since PCOS can sometimes cause a hormonal imbalance that confuses the tests. The second test I did was negative, but I don't much like the sound of 50/50 odds. I decided I'd rather go for best two out of three. The third test was positive.

At this point I decided to get a blood test to put all the uncertainty to rest, which is a hated hated hated ritual for me and my undetectable veins. After the first 3 unsuccessful stabs attempts to find a vein, I actually told God "I had better be pregnant after all this!". And hey, I guess that now and then He'll bless us despite our childish, petulant rants :)

It was a further month before I could get an appointment with my gyneacologist for an ultrasound scan to see how far I was (I had no idea, couldn't even guess).

Keeping it a secret from everybody but our immediate family until the 3 month mark was so difficult - I was so happy, and wanted to shout it form the rooftops! The second hardest thing about it was coming up with new and exciting excuses all the time as to why I wasn't drinking or eating brie. In case you're wondering, most people don't say anything until three months because that's the most risk-prone period. If you've made three months, chances are much higher the pregnancy's happy and healthy.

Imagine our amazement and excitement (in hindsight, you probably can't) to learn in the gynie's office that I was 12 and a half weeks along, and to see the baby on the ultrasound and hear hir heartbeat! It was the most amazingly profound moment of my life so far. We could see a little heart beating, a spine, ribs, eye sockets, even a little full bladder!

The doctor says everything is looking good so far, and I've had a very easy pregnancy. Almost no nausea, no heartburn, only a little tiredness. We'll see the doc again in a little under two weeks.

I refer to the baby as Ziggy (as in, Ziggy the Zygote). Ze is long since not a zygote anymore, but it's stuck and I quite like it.

Due date is 15 November.

Have I mentioned I'm deliriously happy?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Baie lekker om te lees :) En weereens - ons is saam julle opgewonde. Nog meer opgewonde oor die due date... as jy normaal kraam is di kanse altyd dat MP 'n nuwe gusnteling maatjie gaan he om jaarsdag mee te deel! Anyways, net om officially op jou blog te skryf vir die ever afters hierna - baie geluk! MAg die res van jou preggie-skap net so opwindend en sonder onnodige opwinding wees :)

Die Velties

Moonica said...

Dankie S, jy's dierbaar.

Die snaakste is dat Ziggy se verwagte datum presies dieselfde is wat my verwagte datum was! Maar jy weet mos, ek is altyd laat :)

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