I’m pretty sure the entire world heard my sigh of relief yesterday. Perhaps you misconstrued it as a gusty afternoon breeze, but I assure you, that was ME!

The baby is fine! FINE. They checked for neural tube and cleft palate defects first and everything looked totally normal (upon which yours truly got all verklempt) and then measured out legs and arms and heads and hearts. Okay, just one head, one heart. You know what I mean.

Funny enough, the only possible problems discovered weren’t with the baby but with me, though it’s nothing serious. The placenta’s lying very close to my cervix, about 1 cm off to the side, so we’ll be keeping an eye on that as I get huger just to make sure it slides away over time. No biggie.

The other problem? You really want me to share? REALLY? Okay, you asked for it. (Actually, I think I just heard a resounding chorus of, “No, no, PLEASE DON’T SAY!”, but I figure if I can share all my drama, trauma and day to day wackiness with the whole internet, why not go just a little… lower?)

Turns out an annoying ache I’ve had is actually a varicose vein that’s popped out in a VERY UNPLEASANT LOCATION. I’ll leave that to your imaginations (you’re welcome!), but I have to share the doctor’s thrilling news upon this diagnosis.

“Well,” he chirped gleefully, “The good news is it’ll disappear as soon as you give birth. Other than that, you can expect it to get MUCH BIGGER AND MORE PAINFUL until then.” Then he SMILED at me. Like it was, you know, FUNNY.

Come a little closer, sir. I’ll show you funny. Let’s see what it takes for me to leave you with a nasty throbbing ache in your unmentionables. ha. ha. HA.

Twenty weeks this week, halfway there. Today is my big ultrasound, the one to which most moms look forward eagerly. It’s a chance to see your little one “in person”, so to speak, and many families learn the color of the tiny baby clothes they’ll be buying soon. Pink or blue?

For me, though, there won’t be any color revelations. We’re not finding out the boy or girl surprise until this little person slips out into fresh air and its father’s strong hands. Hopefully, that is.  Not unless there’s something wrong. And there lies my guilt and anxiety.

Because, small though the chance may be, there actually couldbe something wrong. If so, it’s because of me. I made a decision when I first found out I was pregnant, knowing the risks, to continue taking my mood stabilizing medication. It’s not approved for pregnancy (it’s actually an anti-epileptic, of all things) and is linked to an increased incidence of a few different, some very serious, birth defects. The increase, as the doctors keep telling me, is only a few percentage points above that of the general population. My midwife, God bless her, told me she’s had several women on my medication go on to have perfect pregnancies and perfect babies. It’s not the worst medication I could have been taking. Hell, if this had happened a year ago when we were still experimenting with pills left and right, things would have been much worse.

The chance is small. But it’s there and it haunts me. We, Kurt and I together, decided that the balance of risk was more to me than to the baby. If I stopped taking my medication, my psychiatrist warned me, I could become very sick, very quickly. I’d be no use to a baby, much less my other children or my husband. Finding a balance in life is sometimes the hardest thing anyone ever seems to seek. I had to balance my health over the small risk to my child’s health.

We’ve obsessed over every medical study, interrogated my doctors to the point of exhaustion. We chose for me. I have continued my meds every day and truth be told, I will continue them through breastfeeding, as well.  It wasn’t a choice I wanted to make, but then again, no one really gets to pick and choose their conflicts, right?

Everyone says, “Don’t worry, it’s fine, of course everything’s fine, you’ll see.” But really, what parent doesn’t worry when there is a risk? From sleeping safely those first months of life to stumbling with those first steps, falling off the jungle gym to getting behind the wheel for the first time on their own– any risk to your child is nerve-wracking (in the least!). A risk you could have possibly prevented? Well… that’s even harder.

So there you have it. My ultrasound is today. We aren’t looking for girl parts or boy parts, we’re looking for a whole person. Whole and healthy and well-formed. I’m perfectly happy to settle for green and yellow onesies as long as everything is ok.

If it’s not, well… I want to know. Eventually, there are enough unknowns to last a lifetime.

My essay about when I first found out I was pregnant appears in this season’s issue of Get Born Magazine. You can read it here on their website, but I encourage you to go pick it up or, better yet, sign up for an annual subscription!

I have a few gift subscriptions available, too, so let me know if you’re interested!!

Walking out to the car from school today, Anna wipes at her hair and makes a Yuck face.

“Ugh. K (protecting the not-so-innocent’s name) got spit in my hair AGAIN.”

WHAT?!

I ask her to clarify and she says, as if it’s commonplace (because apparently it now is), that the little boy she’s been having trouble with in her class is now spitting in her hair from time to time. You know, because it’s funny. He’s also been pushing her, tackling her, grabbing things out of her hands and generally being a, you guessed it, bully.

I’ve already spoken to her teacher once about it. She told me she’d keep a closer eye on interactions between the two of them. She also mentioned that he’s her Problem Student (the capital letters are her emphasis, not mine) and sort of rolled her eyes. And he especially likes Anna. Yay.

Another layer of the problem is that he’s the son of one of the other teachers at the daycare center. So if they can’t solve the problem and have to take action to remove him, then basically that means firing the teacher, too. She can only work because he’s in school all day and she’s got the discounted tuition.

In the car on the way home I found myself lecturing Anna that she should have told her teacher and gotten help cleaning her hair. The poor kid got more and more subdued until I realized that I was pissed off and taking it out on her.

“I’m sorry you’re having problems with K, honey. It’s not your fault. I’m going to call your teacher again today. I just want you to make sure to let someone know when he’s not being nice so that they can help you work it out, ok?  I’m not mad at you AT ALL. When we get home we’ll clean up your hair.”

I don’t want to clean spit out of my 5-year-old’s hair. I don’t want her pictures to all have rips because K grabs them out of her hands whenever she tries to show someone how pretty they are. And most of all, I don’t want her to think it’s normal or okay for someone to be aggressive and demeaning to her. The way she’s just sort of accepted it as part of her day is the most disturbing thing, as far as I’m concerned.

I understand she needs to learn how to stand up for herself and master the basics of conflict resolution. But she’s FIVE, not 15, and I’m not going to make her stand up all alone. I’m also not thrilled about handing over a tuition check every month to pay for her to be intimidated and SPIT ON. 

Besides talking to the teacher and then today to the center supervisor, is there really anything else I can do? All her friends are in that particular class and she really loves her teacher. If they move her to the other class, it’ll be more of a punishment for her than for him.

So. What would you do?

I felt the baby move last night. I was collapsed on the couch next to my (equally exhausted) husband, watching the girls tackle each other on the floor of the living room. Kurt had his legs across my lap and we were just… being. He’s been working so much lately that it was a perfectly perfect moment of perfection to just exist within the same minimal square footage together.

And then, just above and to the side of my left hip, a tickle. I moved my hand over the spot unconsciously, a gesture that was more muscle memory from my previous pregnancies than an actual reaction to the sensation.

And then, again, a flutter, against the inside of my skin.

“Hey,” I whispered to Kurt, “Hey! It moved! I felt it move.”

“Are you sure that’s not just dinner moving?”

“NO!”. I glared. “This is different. I know this. I remember this.”

Suddenly, without even realizing it, my face morphed into a huge smile, practically melting away every line of exhaustion and stress that’s etched it’s way in over the past few months. A flood of memories blurred my vision; laying still in the night while the world slept and a baby moved and twirled inside my belly, just the two of us, my hands curving against the bumps and punches, feeling amazed and amused all at once.

It moved. There’s a baby and it moves and grows and will be a person and have soft skin and warm breath and fingers that wrap tight around my own. Oh, my God.

It moved.