The first sighting

Note: Though this post is dated March 9th, it was actually written on March 6th (the blogging thing is new; I’m still getting the tough stuff figured out…  How was I supposed to know you have to click “Publish” before your posts actually appear on your blog?)

Yesterday we had our first doctor’s appointment.  It was as expected: routine, uneventful, and totally mind-blowing anyway!  First and foremost, we saw a heartbeat on the sonogram!  I saw the image, but hadn’t figured out where to look for the fetus, when the doctor pointed at an intermittent nebulous flickering and told us it was a heartbeat.  But once I was told what I was looking at, it was clear as day…  a very foggy San Francisco day, but who cares?  We saw our baby’s heartbeat!

We found out that our due date is Oct. 19th.  Seems pretty far off, but I’m sure these months will fly by!  Another important thing is that we liked our doctor, which is really important (and not at all a given).  I can’t put  a finger on why we like her, but as long as we both do, the reason doesn’t matter.  We will be going back to see her in about a month (and every month until the end of the pregnancy).

 In the interim, we have some decisions to make.  There are several tests that “older” women (sorry, Jean, but at least you’ll always be younger than me) are told to consider, some of which are invasive of the fetus, and therefore potentially harmful to the baby.  Jean will be 39 when she delivers, and the chance of our baby not having Down Syndrome is still over 99.25%.  Being a gambling man who can recognize good odds when he sees them is unfortunately not helping me…  Offer me that bet for cash-money and I’d say “Book it, book it again, and twice more on Sunday”.  But this particular 134-to-1 shot is scaring the hell out of me!

I think the biggest issue for us right now is making sure Jean gets enough rest, and enough nutrition.  She is having definitely noticeable but not severe pregnancy symptoms.  It seems that getting to bed on the early side and then sleeping a full day each weekend takes care of fatigue, and keeping something simple in her stomach helps with the nausea (I’ve stopped using the term “morning sickness” because it’s not accurate, and “morning, afternoon, evening, and night-time sickness” sounds like we’re about to advertise for  Robitussen).  If any of you are investors, I’d suggest putting some money into crackers!  I think our household will single-handedly increase the profitability of the market over the next six weeks…  It’s many a night, at 3 in the morning, that from the other side of the bed I hear the quiet crinkling of Jean fumbling open a sleeve of Ritz crackers.