Do You Know My Flipper?

No? You haven't met our little Flipper?



Here he* is:
I'm about a week past the point where I miscarried the first pregnancy, and as I result I've been even more of a raging lunatic than usual this past week. I'm not being sarcastic at all when I say that having an insane work schedule actually helped. It kept my mind off what I was sure was impending doom.




Despite the awful memories, I had finally convinced Atomic that we should go back to the nurse practitioner we were seeing before I had the first miscarriage. (I'll call her Nurse Troi, for reasons my geek friends will appreciate). Finally exercising a bit of rationality, I argued that seeing Nurse Troi again would not jinx the baby, and that if heaven forbid we did get bad news, it would be better to hear it from someone we knew and trusted. Still, I wasn't all that eager to go myself.




I finally sucked it up and went in for my first official, post-RE, prenatal visit. I started hyperventilating and sweating, oh, about four hours before our 9am appointment this morning. I dry heaved for the first time in a week. I think I may also have been a wee bit curt with my beloved husband, and, well, let's just say I'm glad that cats have short memories.



We went into the little room and I donned the ceremonial Blue Paper Gown. Atomic and I held hands and stared, zombie-like, at the ultrasound machine. When Nurse Troi finally came in, she said, "well, let's start off with the ultrasound and we can discuss everything else later."



I dug permanent nail marks into Atomic's hand. I closed my eyes.



"Can you see a heartbeat?"



"Bahahahahahahahahaha!!!"



(They're LAUGHING? Wha. . .)



I opened my eyes and, well, FORGET about the heartbeat, our little fetus was flipping and flopping around like a little fish. Squirming and wiggling all over the place. I've never seen anything like it in my life.



I've never seen anything quite so beautiful.



And neither of us could stop crying. We cried even harder when Nurse Troi told us our baby was just the right size, that I could stop taking prometrium because the placenta was "perfectly formed," and that everything looked just wonderful.



Of course, we're still scared and very conscious of all the things that could go wrong.



But man! You shoulda seen that kid move! It makes a mama proud, I tell you.








*Yes, I used the masculine pronoun. No, we don't know if we're having a boy. But for some reason, I've taken to calling him a him. If I'm wrong, I'm sure she'll forgive me. After some therapy.