This is it :)

So I’m here again. W & I are 16 weeks pregnant.

We’ve been playing it low key and telling people slowly. There has been no big announcement. We are really, really happy to be trying this again. Also, speaking for myself here, worrying a lot too.

I woke up this morning thinking about how a few months ago, I was telling someone that I was going to embrace the next pregnancy, light it up from the rooftops and just enjoy it. I had seen this customer at work,  posing for pictures. She was around 5 or 6 months along. She was just so HAPPY and in the moment. So proud and joyful to be expecting. It was nice to see. I don’t think I ever let myself get that happy before. It’s not that I wasn’t, or that I am not now. It’s just a lot harder to get there.

I’ve been thinking about writing for awhile and garnering support from my family and friends. It just so happens that every time I think of this little Ribbit, I think of Dunc too. I don’t think I can write about them separately – I’m having trouble on how to approach it. I think I will just see how it goes, sometimes I can write about one, the other or both.

Ribbit came into being sometime in late June we reckon, I was driving myself a little batty by early July. I thought I might be pregnant, but the tests I had showed up negative. So I sat down and had a beer that night. The next day, I got some more tests in the mail – I was thinking the cheap ones I had in the cupboard might be old and dodgy, so I had ordered some others. I was pretty shocked when the line changed. Then happy. Then really surprised at HOW happy. W has now received the news he is going to be a Dad over the phone twice – since I am terrible at waiting to tell him ANYTHING.

Since then, it’s been the glory of the first trimester. I think I handled it better this time around. I definitely ate more and puked less. Also – for some reason this little baby is a serious carnivore – with Dunc I couldn’t stand the sight of meat, much less eat it. This one is giving me wacky dreams about eating steak! They both didn’t let me touch coffee though. Just the smell of that was… pretty unpleasant. I was also really effing tired. I could go on and on ..an ON about all the grossness of the first part…but I will save that for another day. First trimester sucks for a LOT of reasons!

We went with a different batch of midwives this time. We picked a hospital connected to the local university. It is also a little way out of the city. It was optimistically done, since whilst we are trying to buy a house, we haven’t landed one yet! The midwives seem ok – I have no comparison to Australian prenatal care, but sometimes the health professionals here whack me out. (there is an awkward TMI story here, but it’s a bit much for a Monday morning) .

The first ultrasound with Ribbit was good. Once we finally got into it. I had a largely irrational fear that we would walk in and there would be no heartbeat..or something would be drastically wrong. The first time around, I don’t think that kind of concern even blipped on my radar. So leading up to that scan, W and I were both reasonably jittery.

Ribbit was in there though, and oh so busy! It was pretty comical, the baby was waving arms and legs and almost sort of marching on the spot in there. The baby also had legs facing down, spine up. No idea what they were up to, but that baby was pretty busy. Dunc was sort of chilling out laying with back towards the ground and legs and arms in the air, like he was in a hammock. These two seem to be like chalk and cheese 😉

At 12 weeks you can see the whole baby at once, so it’s pretty cool. I can’t wait to get past the big anatomy scan in a few weeks. I hope I will calm down a bit and just enjoy this. If anything happens, it will still hurt just as bad. There is nothing I can do though, I just have to live through it. I know, I know that the chances are slim, that surely our luck couldn’t be that bad twice running. But unfortunately until I see a live baby at the end of this, I think I am going to stress out about it.  I know this sounds melodramatic. It looks nuts as I write it. But these thoughts flick by. I can’t deny them. But then, if I spent all day thinking about all the things that could go wrong every time I wake up in the morning…I’d probably need to be taking some kind of heavy drug.

I think about other things though. I wonder if this one is a girl, because things are so different. I think about introducing the baby to our family and friends. I wonder if my grumpy cat will be able to put up with a newborn. I am glad we are trying again, that we are in this process. Although I am pregnant at very nearly the exact same time.

But for now. It’s good.  Ribbit kicked me while I was cleaning the shower last night. It was… Fantastic :)  I don’t think it’s the first time…but I think it’s one of the first times I’ve let myself feel it. That sounds nonsensical. But there you go.

P.S. We call Ribbit..well, Ribbit for a lot of stupid and cute reasons surrounding tiny water animals, rainbows and green stuff. The stuff you have to put up with from your parents when you are gestating eh?