A month ago I knew when I bought what amounted to pull-up pants that it was a going to be a long road to baby-dom. The pants were corduroy! But they were the only ones that fit without being true maternity which I definitely didn’t fit into yet. The pants had an elasticized top instead of a button and zipper and every time I put them on I had the disconcerting feeling that I was putting on pull-ups diapers. Bodies are weird. I’d gained barely 2 pounds but I’d already grown out of the jeans I wore when I was thirty pounds heavier, how can that be?

Now I’m a little over four months pregnant. I’ve successfully found one true pair of maternity pants that fit but they are jeans so I can’t wear them to work. So I’m biding time with pants that are three sizes bigger than I’m used to and fit the tummy but look like I’m planning to hide medium sized valuables in the vast excess of fabric around my thighs, or that I’m planning on going horseback riding.

At least I’m pregnant enough to get away with maternity shirts which are the best inventions in the world but all look like they were designed for civilians on Star Trek. I love that they tie in the back, leaving the tummy to the imagination. Why didn’t I think of that when I was overweight? It’s genius! Though for some reason they are ALL designed with the overlapping fabric over the bosom, so they all have plunging necklines. That might be great if I had big breasts to fill out the bosom or if I didn’t have breasts at all. But, truly, the design is exactly that of all the civilians you’ve ever seen in a Star Trek episode… even on some of the men. I think my problem is that currently my breasts are somewhere in between little and sorta’ big. It didn’t used to be a problem ‘cuz they used to be ice-scream scoop size but as my dear husband is now fond of pointing out (and pointing literally) I now have big knockers. So the good news is he hasn’t done much comparison shopping, bad news is I have to figure out all over again how to wear a bra properly. I feel like I’m going through puberty again only it’s missing pieces because there isn’t a period involved… which by the way is by far the best thing about this whole experience! It also doesn’t have my mother beginning conversations with, ‘well, when a girl gets to be a certain age…’.

After I got through my first twelve weeks of pregnancy and wasn’t quite so paranoid that I would lose the baby we started talking about what to name it. Chris immediately voted for Steve Dave, which is what he said when I asked him about naming the cats and the hamsters. I couldn’t picture leaning over and saying ‘come on baby Steve, come to mommy’. Actually, at that time, every word in that sentence felt really misplaced, like I was talking about someone else. So we compromised. We called the embryo Steve and then it became Steve the fetus, with the understanding that when it came out, it would not be Steve. Sadly it’s become so ingrained that now in the middle of the night I’ll tell Chris to roll over and quite crushing Steve.

Frank is my doctor, I’ve known him for the couple of years he’s been at the clinic and he’s a tech-head so he’d hang out and talk to me and the guys I work with. When I got pregnant I could easily have gone with one of the other two OB doctors in the clinic but Frank has always been so nice that even though it’d be a little weird I knew I could trust him to take care of me. My first appointment when Chris and I were nervous about asking baby questions Frank started off the conversation talking about the new anime he had just picked up and the fact that he is fluent in Japanese. He had Chris’ respect right there and then and it’s been golden from then on.

Anyways, I had a regularly scheduled doctor’s appointment last Tuesday where all they were going to do was listen to the baby heartbeat, ask me how I was feeling and send me on my way. It’d been a month since the only ultrasound I’ve had so I asked in my best hope-you-won’t-turn-me-down-‘cuz-I’d-be-crushed voice if I could have another. Frank looked at me in surprise and said that as a matter of fact he was getting a brand new ultrasound machine at noon, and would I mind being their first patient to try it out on? Heck no! Frank said he’d call me back when the machine was ready and lo and behold as I was walking out the guy from the ultrasound machine company came up to the window and introduced himself… his name, was Steve. I ended up walking Steve to our Materials department where the new ultrasound machine was waiting patiently in two big boxes. He started to unpack the machine and I raced back to my desk to fidget until the phone rang. The two girls I work with were just as excited as I was and when the phone finally rang we all looked at it and then at each other. Frank, totally nonplussed, simply said ‘come on up’.

I raced up to the OB department and when I walked in it was like stepping into a drunk beehive. Tons of people were milling about, sipping fruity drinks with little umbrellas and a lot of the staff had little umbrellas in their hair. They were laughing and talking excitedly and flowing in and out of one of the exam rooms where Steve the ultrasound guy was giving a basic show and tell. Apparently one of the staff was leaving on a vacation to Panama, hence the umbrellas, and many of the other doctors wanted to see the new machine, hence the people. I was ushered into the crush of people in the exam room and sat on the table while Steve the ultrasound guy went through his spiel. They hadn’t told me if it was gonna’ be an over the tummy or a probe ultrasound and it sure didn’t look like anybody was leaving so I was greatly relieved when they broke out the ultrasonic gel. The four doctors who were there to learn the machine took five minutes to politely offer the first chance to use the machine to each other. Finally one of them was brave enough to volunteer and the training began. For forty-five minutes I got to watch the baby on the monitor while the doctors took turns learning the machine and all the buttons, measuring random baby parts and taking pictures. Meanwhile staff flowed in and out of the open door and offered people drinks. The machine was actually quite easy to use, it has a vast amount of buttons that users have to learn not to touch but it does a lot of cool things with just the three buttons that they do get to use. The best part about it was that doctors were just as amazed at seeing the baby as I was, the old ultrasound machine had a monitor that was only 7 inches, this was 13 or 14 inches and they got as excited pointing out the various baby parts as I was to see them. The baby meanwhile seemed quite content to be the star of the show, it obliging flipped around and waived and gave a couple of mug shots and profile shots. It was a good half hour though until the baby finally gave up the goods and flipped just the right way to make Dr. Muday (Frank’s wife) exclaim excitedly ‘oh my gosh, I think, yes, do you see that? It looks like a girl!’ To me it looked like a dear track on the screen, and Dr. Lu explained to me that it didn’t look like a turtle so it probably wasn’t a boy. I love technical terms. The funny thing is that even though all four doctors exclaimed and cooed agreement, none of them would commit a final say-so. After the initial exclamation they all ventured statements like ‘we could be wrong’, and ‘it’s still rather early to tell’. But even Steve the ultrasound guy said it sure looked like a girl to him. By that time lunch was arriving and the fifth doctor who was called to the hospital hadn’t arrived back yet so they cleaned me up and let me go. Everyone thanked me profusely for being so nice and patient about the whole thing but I would gladly pay to go through that again!

Chris was home sick so he wasn’t the first person I broke the news to, first I rushed straight downstairs and showed the pictures to Rose. Then I showed them to everyone I passed in the hallway, and then all of the Patient Services department and then my coworkers, and then I called Chris, (sorry honey). He was so sweet when I told him. I started the conversation by saying it looked like we couldn’t call it Steve anymore and he thought about it for a second and then sounded a little choked up and mushy when he said ‘that’s so cool.’

So the official word isn’t in yet. I have an appointment with a Radiology group on the 17th of this month to officially find out what sex the baby is but it looks like Rose and my dad have won the pool. Now the problem is the name. Chris likes Nevada, for a girl. I was lobbying for something really cutesy like Kylee or Kami, and he told me to get off the K names. But for now I’m still telling Chris to roll over and get off Steve. :satisfied:

Posted by Emilie in Uncategorized, Family