Predictions

Now that we are almost into the twelfth week and out of the danger zone of miscarriages, the predictions have started.

What gender do I think the baby is? Answer: girl.
Don't ask me why - I just feel that it is. My husband is worried I will be disappointed by a boy. How's that for generational irony?

When do I think the baby will come? Answer: early because we have a history of pre-mies in my family, myself included. I predict three week early - sometime in June.

How much do I think the baby will weigh? Answer: five - seven pounds.

These are the things a first time mother of friends with 2+ children knows to contemplate. The other night I had to laugh at myself because I brought back several parenting books when I came back on vacation. And I was only a few pages into the first one. I've got to hurry up, I thought on the plane, I'm supposed to have read an entire one before we land.

Later that night, tucked safely back in bed, I realized that I have 6 months to read these books. And for me, who can read a book in a day, that should be plenty of time.

If the jet lag keeps up (last night had me awake from 2am - 5am) then I should rip through them in no time.

I heartily give THE GIRLFRIENDS' GUIDE TO PREGNANCY a hearty two thumbs up. Refreshingly honest and thorough, it is remarkably like having a talk with a girlfriend - but you've never met the writer or talked to her. Nevertheless the overall effect is reassuring.

My husband is reading a book also, much shorter and smaller than mine MY GUYS CAN SWIM the only pregnancy book purported to not put father's to sleep. Apparently thus far it's been true.

And then...

Taking a test at 6:00 a.m. in the morning is not exciting, much less in a foreign country when part of the procedure is not just releasing fluid onto a stick, but actually putting it in a cup and then using a dropper to gather exactly five drops (or six, can't remember, I was barely awake) on the strip and wait for more than one line.

My husband was in the other room, still sleeping and in denial that we were getting ready to go to the floating market outside of Bangkok, an excursion we had by-passed last visit because we were exhausted. This time I managed to convince one of our accompanying friends to also head out to the market and take photos, despite the early departure.

I got dressed and headed out the door with the two men, my mind reeling from what I had seen. I hadn't worked out a plan for how to tell my husband that the experience he was so excited about was upon us. If he asks me, I'll just tell him, my weary mind reasoned.

The whole day went by as we shopped with a newlywed couple from New Jersey and snapped away like crazy. The clandestine trip to the pharmacy next to the hotel seemed to have disappeared from my husband's mind; I was still gathering my own thoughts - like Mary, treasuring them up maybe - when in the bus on the way back from the market he turned me to me said: "What did the test say?"

He is a practical joker so this is one moment he couldn't trust the smile that spread across my face. After all I'm always trying to 'punk' him but never succeed because I'm such a bad liar and break into a hysterical fit of giggles. The shook his head because he didn't believe me; asked me again.

As the news settled in we came back to Qatar and started the round of doctor's visits, nervous about seeing people we knew at the hospital since this is such a small community. Inevitably we did. But that, we were soon to realize, was when the real adventure begins.

The Wait(he)

This summer during the Arabic course I took in Damascus there were many college age Italians with charming accents. One of the words that I would ask our friend Matteo to pronounce over and over again was the word "wait". He would always say it "waithe".

For those of you have been in the waiting process to find out if you are pregnant, you know it isn't pretty. Even if you have only been trying for four months, like we are, there is no reason for the rising panic or fear. But no matter what reason and logic say, the heart still jumps each time you sit down at the toilet the week you are expecting your period, not wanting to see pink.

So you go about your life and each day it doesn't come, is another day you think maybe something is growing inside you.

And that leads to a whole different set of worries -- but mostly the happy kind.
Wait(he) with me.

The waiting is the worst

Anyone who has tried to get pregnant know this to be true: The waiting is the worst part. What has been interesting this week is that I'm traveling with another woman who is in her second trimester. So she knows she's having a baby and has a little tummy to prove it.

Yesterday while I was getting a manicure, the woman at the spa pointed at my stomach and said, "Baby?"

"We don't know yet," I said. Which is the truth. Because although I am a little late for my period, I don't want to hope yet that it's late enough. I would have loved to stopped in any one of the ten pharamacies I saw today and ask for a pregnancy test but our friends were with us. And my husband and I are trying to spare everyone the awkwardness of knowing that we want something someone else already has. Getting my period at this point will be a bigger disappointment than any previous month because this is the longest it's been.

Also then I will have to admit that any of the weight I lost over the summer while studying in Damascus has now come back and directly to my stomach.

We were walking towards the Golden Palace today in Bangkok, Thailand, and a man called out to my husband: "A girl or a boy?"

I hoped he was talking about our friend who was walking behind us.

The biggest advantage to being pregnant will be the ability to be fat and not to have worry about this expanding belly.

Either it's extreme pre-period bloated-ness or my body rebelling for a near month of non exercise.

Stay tuned to see what happens. My mind isn't made up either way. I do know that car fumes in the past have never made me nauseous before; or that the mere act of drinking water can calm that bile rising in my throat; the crunching sounds of our relatives on chicken bones over the weekend had me running from the table; and the smell of fish and other seafood in the markets of Laos and Thailand have me breathing through my mouth.

We may soon have another problem: why at one month I'm three times the size of my friend who is three months.

Life is always about challenges.

Yes? No?

It's strange to think that after three years of dreading the possibility, I'm now reading every sign of my body to be affirmative. The idea that I could be nurturing life inside is a fascinating and hopeful one. I don't want to get too excited as we are about to go away on vacation with a couple that has a two year old as well as one on the way. Facing the fact that I might start menstrating again while with them is not that exciting. But the idea that I might not, is. That is the most unbalanced part of this journey: not knowing. It's been a long time since I had this uncertainity -- since applying for jobs, or waiting for the results of my PhD defense. That's why it's called faith.

Are you pregnant yet?

"Are you pregnant?" This was a question that the check-in desk attendant put to me and a friend as we were issued our boarding passes for a return flight yesterday.

"No, we're not," my friend said.

"Well, at least one of us might be," I countered. This is the truth; as I write I don't know if I am or not. And I don't know if I dare hope to be or not. So I feel nothing, trying not the read the signs of my body one way or another. Is it PMS? Or is the early signs of life growing inside me?

I spent the week with my friend, the young mother, as part of a panel presenting at an academic conference. My friend had the idea to return home early as she missed her one year old baby and husband. I had a lot of work to do and relished the idea of being home two days earlier than planned to recover from the week of being away. Of course I hoped my husbad and I might also spend a little time together over the weekend, knowing we had busy weeks ahead.

I enjoyed sharing a room and in general a good time with my friend on our trip despite the constant mentions of her baby, motherhood. She knew we were trying to conceive and had been one of the constant 'just checking in' inquirers over the past three years. I shared with her our experience thus far -- she herself had taken six months to get pregnant when first trying.

The week before leaving for a conference, I had a catch up with a college friend over the phone. She told me in detail that I really appreciated, about her own year journey with conception and her recent discovery that she had regularly had her period but not been ovulating.

"I spent most of my life trying not to get pregnant," she said in her charming North Carolina accent that I missed from our college days. "And now that it's okay, I can't to save my life."

We laughed at that and about this blog; about all the people around us that were 'popping them out' and our desire to maintain our careers, marriages, and the prospect of families.

Now I'm back home and oddly our very good friends have not officially invited us to their son's two year old birthday party tomorrow. They are pregnant with their second child and their first is like a nephew to us. We think of him at the airport on various trips around the world and were there the day after he was born. We've taken vacations with them and have another one coming up soon.

Did they not invite us because we don't have a child and this was a child's party? This seemed a strange but plausible explanation. Which leads me to the question: if we aren't able to have a baby for some reason -- and it's far too early to say yea or nay on this -- is this the future that awaits us? Awkwardness as people prattle on about their infant children; isolation from those events that invovled young families?

Normally I think women feel spurts of jealousy when they see others with husbands or babies that they want to have for their own. But this week I felt neither, just a mild curiosity about observing my own lack of reaction from afar, like an out of body experience. I conditioned myself to life the life I wanted; I didn't want to be a mother of three at twenty like my mother or twenty three like my sister.

I've always said I would love to adopt and stand by that as we head into our fifth month of 'trying.' This week we should know for sure either way what is happening. If not, the plan is to be tested when we are home for the holidays. What a journey bringing a life into the world is.

They never go to the bathroom

In the movies, after the deed, they never go to the bathroom. Anyone else think that is false advertising?

Was just writing to my newly married friend who had a UTI (urinary tract infection) and the irony struck me: sometimes you have to get up right after to make sure the germs don't invade your system. Other times you have to lay there, hoping that they do.

This week I was pleasantly surprised by a chat with a colleague, a woman who teaches at a university nearby. Ambitions and newly married, she also is in this mad process of making your body do something it could have done much easier ten years ago.

It felt good to share that with someone in the same stage.

"I'm the oldest in the house," she said, "so I have no one to really look to on this."

I'm the middle child and my sister has three kids. So there's plenty of knowledge there. But as usual I'd rather feel everything even the scary stuff rather than be told 'it will all be alright' or 'everything will happen in time.' Both may be true but neither really help in the duration.