Hi! Welcome to Pregnancy

I told a colleague I was pregnant today, to explain why I’ve been, well, how I’ve been - a little bit fuzzy and incredibly tired. Lo and behold, she’s pregnant, too, and about as far along as I am (though she doesn’t know for sure). It was nice to share a little bit, but mostly I felt like our experiences were so incredibly different that we were talking about different things. They were trying for a month (granted, they didn’t expect to conceive that fast - they knew it might take some time and figured they’d get started now). She doesn’t know her due date yet. She hasn’t yet seen an OB/midwife (her first appointment is in a a week or two, which if she’s due when she thinks she is will put it at late in her 11th week, if not into her 12th). She’s not sure if she’ll get an ultrasound at that appointment (though she wants one just to be sure everything is as it should be). She doesn’t intimately know what a transvag ultrasound is, let alone that it can be used to see the heartbeat before it can be heard on the doppler. She’s already told a couple of people, including some friends, and her boss. Her husband told his boss, too. It’s all just so weird to me. See what I mean about normal pregnant women? It’s a completely different world for them.

On the positive side, I didn’t greet this news with quite the same pang of intense jealousy as I would have in the past. It helped a bit to be the knowledgable one, slightly further along (at least in my head) and more experienced. It wasn’t easy, exactly, but it didn’t sting as much as it would have before. It was one of those moments where I really thought I was pregnant.

I took that feeling and ran with it, all the way to the maternity clothing store. I have that one pair of jeans, but I only had a couple of shirts that sorta kinda covered the waistband, and I thought maybe it was time. The store was even more surreal. There were three women working there, and two looked like they were in high school. Not that high school women don’t get pregnant sometimes, but these women clearly didn’t have any firsthand knowledge. It was just weird. Also weird was the couple that came in looking for a gift or something? I mean, it wasn’t for her, and it wasn’t for him, so I guess it was for someone else. Hopefully someone actually pregnant, since this woman was like 12 (okay, probably 19) and a size 2. And she kept exclaiming over how cute the clothes were. Geez, either go get pregnant so you can buy them, or go away, please. The last nutty thing was that everytime anyone walked into the store, the staff would greet them with, “Hi! Welcome to Motherhood.” I’m not ready to be welcomed to motherhood just yet. I’m still getting settled in pregnancy.

P.S. to Kell - I can’t find your email address anywhere, but if you email me I’d be happy to share what I know about SoCal clinics. My email address is on the ‘about’ page.