Nov
12

Under Pressure.

The genetic counselor finally called today. Still no word on the Cystic Fibrosis test, but our first trimester screening results are back, and they are excellent. Each baby has less than a 1/10,000 risk of Downs, Trisomy 13, and Trisomy 18—the best odds they give. I am delighted. This is better than I had dared hope. No word on when the CF results will be back, but as there is nothing I can do to change them, I am going to attempt to put them out of my mind for now and bask in the warm, roseate glow of the results I do have, the ones that indicate that we have every reason to believe both babies are healthy.
I am also going to relax a bit about the weight gain issue. You all had so many excellent suggestions and reassuring things to say. I think I get a bit panicky because I flash back to my time as a 90-pounder, when I couldn’t gain weight to save my life and any bout with nausea was a disaster because I would (and did) lose weight within a day if I didn’t keep a steady stream of calories cascading down my gullet. But obviously it has been some time since lack of weight has been an issue for me, and it’s not like I came into this pregnancy all waif-like and underfed. So for now I am going to take everyone’s advice and focus on eating what I can (ice cream, cheese, fortified pasta, cream sauces, etc.) and stop flagellating myself for being unable to stomach chicken. Unsurprisingly, I seem to feel much better when I eat things that appeal to me rather than trying to cram something that I think I should be eating down my throat. And if that means biscuits and gravy for breakfast instead of eggs and sausage, well, better I keep down something carb-heavy than make myself sick trying to get enough protein and spend the rest of the day too nauseated to eat at all. Tonight I will make a lovely cheese sauce to pour over pasta, and maybe get some protein powder to dump into a milkshake. Yesterday I made a homemade Blizzard by tossing a few leftover mini Special Dark bars into a blender with ice cream and milk, and I think if I add protein powder such a thing could qualify as “healthy,” am I wrong? Adding Reese’s Pieces would probably be even better, as they have peanut butter, which is excellent for babies and helps them to grow fat and succulent.
I have an OB appointment tomorrow and I am quite looking forward to it, as I haven’t seen Dr. Schrödinger in four weeks—a cruelly long interval. The appointment could not come at a better time: I have been noticing an odd pressure in my lower region. I believe it is bladder pressure, sort of a constant feeling that I have to pee, alas half the time I trundle laboriously to the bathroom only to expel a paltry amount of liquid. Sometimes I have a more generalized feeling of pressure, and get terribly paranoid about my cervix, but so far my best guess is that my tilted uterus is sitting stubbornly where it oughtn’t. Unfortunately, I started having little zinging painful cramps last night to accompany all of this, probably something ligament related, or merely a small angry spear-thrower in my pelvis, but it worries me nonetheless, as everything does these days, and I will feel better after a chat with my OB, a urine culture (assuming I can manage such a thing with my notoriously shy bladder), and maybe a peek at my cervical length. Measuring my cervix is always a bit difficult, as it zig-zags this way and that and the measurement must be taken in three parts. I don’t mind, as I think it is very clever of my cervix to corkscrew as a means of making escape more difficult for an overly hasty Science Baby. The babies have been told in no uncertain terms that they are not allowed to go anywhere until AT LEAST 32 weeks, but these days children so rarely listen to their elders.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |