I'm sooooooo sleepy today. I left work early, I was so sleepy. That, and I had nothing to do, so I figured I'd be just as well going home. Now that I'm home and dinner's over, I am sleepier than ever. I'm so sleepy and body-heavy feeling that I'm wondering if I'm getting sick. I'm not sure how to tell the difference. Heavy, achy, totally-wiped-out tired. No, it surpasses tired. I'm thoroughly exhausted. Anyway, it's so bad that I'm heading to bed and it's only 7:10. Can this be normal?
I cannot concentrate this morning! My mind keeps wandering off and I lose track of what I'm doing. It's not even wandering off to think of baby things, although there is some of that too, certainly. I need a brain shepherd.
This evening on the way home from work, I drove past the hospital where the baby will be born (assuming I don't get stuck in a taxi or an elevator, of course). I drive past the hospital every day going to and from work. Always before, I would look at the hospital and daydream about how someday we would be there to give birth to our baby. It would make me long for that day and feel a little sad and happy all at the same time.
Today, for the first time in my life, I drove past the hospital and it gave me shivers. I looked at it as I crept past in traffic and my throat constricted. I felt all happy-sad in a different way as it occurred to me that the hospital was where we would be in mere months, to give birth to our baby. We're on a countdown now, a real, live, honest-to-goodness countdown. It's unreal.
I have that thought a lot, actually, about how unreal it is. Being pregnant is something I've never been able to imagine before. I have never been able to conceive (no pun intended!!) of what it would be like. Somehow I always cynically assumed that meant I never would be pregnant, that it was something I was destined to miss out on.
Now that I am pregnant, it's unreal. It's all these ideas and feelings and stories I've read and heard from countless women, suddenly all happening to me. To me. The me who secretly doubted that she'd ever get to experience this, is now actually, honestly going through it. Unreal. Wonderfully, incredibly unreal.
I called and made my first docter's appointment today. I go in on August 27. I'll be somewhere around 8-9 weeks along at that point. I looked it up today, and the baby will be very nearly an inch long. We'll have an ultrasound at that appointment, which surprised me. I didn't expect one so early.
I'm so very excited about everything. The appointment itself, confirmation that it's real and I'm actually pregnant, the ultrasound, even the bloodwork. Listing it like that makes it seem a little bit overwhelming, actually. It also makes it seem preposterous that the thing I'm especially excited about is getting a due date. For now I have to make assumptions on my own about the due date. Going by the date of last month's period, the due date is March 30 or 31 (depending on the online calculator I use). Going by the date of conception, which we know because of our tracking of temperatures, the due date is anywhere from April 2 to April 4, again depending on the calculator. So, a range from March 30 - April 4. We're pulling for April 4, not necessarily as the due date, but as the birth date. How cool would that be? 04-04-04. Hee. In fact, I hope that's not our due date, since only something like 1 in 20 babies are born on their due dates!
And as for pregnancy things... I have felt pretty good overall today. Not too tired, not too nauseous, not too sore. And naturally, it has me worried. I peed on another stick tonight. Jason saw me pulling the test our from under the sink and commented. I responded that I needed the reassurance. The one I took Friday has faded so you can barely see half of the plus sign. Illogically, this makes me worry that something's gone wrong inside me too. I can't explain it, really. I know that it doesn't make sense. Thank goodness, the second test turned out as positive as the first. Phew.
Today is Jason's birthday. Happy birthday, Jason! The countdown to 30 begins now. Mua-hahaha. Although, lucky him, he gets an extra day in there (next year's a leap year, after all)!
And what a birthday present he gets! The best ever, he says. As for actual real presents he can enjoy now (as opposed to the one he has to wait 35 or so weeks for), we are going to see Cirque du Soleil next weekend. We haven't been to see a show or concert of any kind in about 8 years, so we decided it was time to fix that problem.
We went to see Seabiscuit today and we cooked a nice steak dinner at home by way of celebrating. After dinner, we played Euro Rails. During the game, it started to storm and the power went out. And it stayed out. I was going to make some sort of dessert (strawberries with a sour cream sauce was what I was planning) but since the power was out, and we didn't know for how long, we went to DQ instead, rather than risk letting out the cold air from the refrigerator. The power came back on around 9:30, thankfully!
All night every time I got up to pee, and also all morning every time I walk past the bathroom, I'd check the test that was sitting on the counter, just to make sure it was true. And to make sure that I hadn't misread it. I felt silly, but I also couldn't believe it was true.
When I got home from work, I collapsed on the sofa, exhausted. I would have been happy to simply stay there, immobile, for the rest of the evening. But Jason and I had made plans, so immobile I could not be. After the episode of the Simpsons that was playing was over, I changed clothes and we went to get our dinner. We picked up Italian from Da Vinci Pronto and took it to Highbanks park, where we sat at a picnic table under the shade of a big tree and ate chicken roma and lasange.
The sun slid lower in the sky while we sat eating and talking, taking the shade with it. I started to get hot, so we moved back into the shade. One of the things we talked about, inevitably, was whether we thought I was pregnant. We were cautiously hopeful, but after the crushing disappointment of last month, we were neither of us eager to speak the words that were at the front of our minds - or that were at the front of my mind.
I felt pregnant. The "symptoms" that I'd experienced the previous month, and the small handful of other times my period was late and I thought I might be pregnant, were nothing quite like what I felt this month. Something about the tiredness I felt was different. Something about the nagging, persistent sensation of nausea was different. Something about the cramps and pains I was feeling in my belly were different. My breasts were actually starting to get sore, instead of the faint maybe-but-I-can't-be-sure soreness from before. And yet, I couldn't let myself say the words, not even in the quiet of my head, and certainly not outloud to Jason, for fear of jinxing myself.
All week I waited, not particularly on pins and needles, but anxious just the same. We talked about whether I was pregnant some, mostly about how we hoped that I was but that we were being careful and not putting too much of our hearts into the hope, and when we would test. Thursday and today, when my temperatures remained high and my period was still absent, not to mention the other symptoms that were cropping up one by one that I had never experienced before this (such as when I walked down a hallway at work and had to cover my nose to block the smell of someone's spaghetti lunch because it made my throat constrict dangerously), our hopes rose more and more, no matter how we tried to temper them.
After the park, we went to the mall, where we wandered around and looked here and there. Everywhere I looked, I saw pregnant women, or couples with very small babies. I couldn't escape thinking about it. Finally, as we were leaving the mall, Jason asked me again, "So, when do you think you want to test?" I answered that I wasn't sure. We had talked earlier about maybe even testing tonight, but that seemed too soon to me. Not temporally too soon, for my period was a day or so late, but emotionally, it was too soon, too soon for me to want to give up the hope. He rationalized, "Look at it this way: if you test tonight and it's negative, you have all weekend to adjust to the idea. And if it's positive, you have all weekend to adjust to the idea before you have to go to work and pretend like nothing's up." I had to admit that it was sound reasoning, but that testing in the morning would accomplish more or less the same thing.
When we got home, Jason took Straka outside to pee. I ran upstairs to go to the bathroom. I had made a decision on the way home. I was going to test. Tonight. Now.
So I did. I set it on the counter, glancing down at it and away and down at it again. I watched the line of wetness creep up and up and up the stick. One line appeared, and then, before my very eyes, a second line appeared. Practically before the control line had been reached, the plus sign was visible. Strong and dark, right there in front of my eyes. I was surprisingly calm, surprisingly unsurprised. That being said, I nearly forgot to button my pants and do up my belt before I grabbed the test and went downstairs to show Jason.
Jason was still outside with Straka. I opened the door and saw him sitting on the step. I stepped out and knealt down behind him, and put the test out on front of him. It took him a second to look at it, for it to register. We sat there on the step in the dark, laughing and giggling and crying, hugging and being amazed and thankful and stunned. We came inside and sat in the office, just looking at each other with little to say. We just grinned, and giggled, and told each other that we were pregnant over and over. We had done it.
It's hard to believe, but it's true. We are pregnant. We're going to have a baby. We're going to be parents.