A little sigh of relief

Having a baby is stressful if you think about it. As the mother, I am wholly responsible for this little being's life until he is born. Then, I get to share the responsibility. Until then, the work falls on me.

Fine, I am giving up my body. I am slow and not running far and I was dead on my feet sick from November until the end of January. Literally. If you saw me or talked to me, I was probably smiling on the outside but absolutely dying on the inside. I have heartburn, I have to sleep on my left side, and I am slowly losing the ability to tie my running shoes without some kind of weird maneuver. I am hormonal and a wee bit grumpy.

All of those things are totally superficial. No doubt about it. The reward at the end of this 9 month training program is beyond priceless. This summer I will go back to running without losing my breath so quickly, I will be able to see my feet, I will be able to carry Jackson more easily, and  hopefully my heartburn goes away.

The worrisome part is thinking about the food you eat, what you drink, your sleep habits, and how everything you do may or may not affect the child and their growth in some way.You can't think on it too much or you'll go crazy.

There are things you have to do in pregnancy that are obvious:
Stop Drinking Alcohol - Done
No Contact Sports - Done
Don't exercise in an anaerobic state - Done
Wear your seat belt - Easy
Take your vitamins - Done

There are other things that are out there that can make your head spin. Don't eat under-cooked meat, don't eat deli meat (unless cooked to a specific temperature), don't eat certain fish, watch your caffeine intake, and many more.

I eat pretty well in my regular life so food wasn't a big deal for me. I like a medium rare steak with a glass of red wine. So, no wine and we'll go medium instead of medium rare. I eat a well balanced diet and actually mostly gluten free so my nutrition should be fine.

Where I worry myself are the things I can't really control. Will he have 10 fingers and 10 toes? Will he have all of his organs? Will his heart have four chambers? I can't really do a thing to make sure those happen except to pray and hope for the best.

So, each ultrasound is very, very important to me and although very little in life makes me nervous...waiting for an ultrasound will drive me crazy.

At 20 weeks with Jackson, we discovered that his right foot was a club foot. The only thing we could do was to talk to his future orthopedic doctor and wait. Everything came out fine. He was casted for several weeks, had a surgery at 5 weeks, casted for three more weeks, and wore some special little shoes for a while. His right foot is a little shorter than his left foot but that will never impede his ability to play sports and no one will ever know about the foot unless we tell them.

Yesterday, we had the same anatomy ultrasound for Baby #2. This is also a big one because you find out the gender of your child. Our ultrasound tech at 12 weeks told us that this was a boy so we had that info going in. I have to admit that I was pretty irritated heading into the appointment. I had been waiting for 45 minutes because they "were just running late"and no one bothered to tell me. Already nervous, the long wait time did not sit well with me. When we got to the room and they were ready to go, I thought to myself...Will he be there (yes, even though I can feel him already)? How is this going to turn out?

Turns out that Little Altman 2 is growing just fine. Legs, arms, feet, hands, nose, lips, chin, 4 chambers to the heart, and more. It is all there and developing on schedule. Whew. A sigh of relief. Now we will wait several weeks before we see him again on ultrasound. Until then, I have pictures proving to me that he is in fact real and that we've made it half way.

I am sure tomorrow I will start the worry process of finishing the second half of this pregnancy. Until then, I will breath another little sigh of relief and celebrate the journey so far.