Do you ever have something that you can’t stop concentrating on? You know the feeling. It’s like when you are in the beginning of a relationship and you can only think about that person. When you get a new puppy and you follow it around afraid it will pee on the floor. Or you have a sick child and you fear they might projectile vomit at any moment. Or you’re pregnant and you’re a afraid to say anything at all because it might slip out before it should or it might end in a devastating way.
Yeah, that last one.
But then I got the best Christmas present ever a few days after the holiday. In a tiny little room on the third floor of a medical building, I got to hear the heartbeat of our third child, due next summer. 167 beat per minute. A tiny little peanut waving his or her hands and feet around from the inside–as if to say “hey Mom, you can stop worrying now. Be a little excited.”
I’ve known since a few days after Thanksgiving. My days left me exhausted and most of the time I feel like I’m that sick kid mentioned above. Then I got a nasty virus that knocked me out, quite literally, for 10 days. A busy week and then a bundle of nerves led us up to Christmas and then I felt like anything I posted would be a veiled attempt at talking about my emotions or something like that. I needed something to make me feel better. But there was only one thing.
Knowing my baby was in there: Happy and healthy.
I spent the days leading up to my first appointment trying to figure out if my early pregnancy symptoms were psychosomatic, or real. I begged my husband not to jinx it by looking at bunk beds for our girls before we knew that all systems were go. I kept in my secret, just waiting for the day when all things were verified.
And then it came.
Within seconds of putting the ultrasound goop on my abdomen, there was a little baby kicking it’s feet and fluttering around.
It was a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year indeed.
