We got one!

And she's comin' home!!

My water broke at home, right after writing that last post. So "Eviction Day" ended up being our second day at home from the hospital. Wyatt's sister Eloise is alive and well. Yippeee!

Posted: Eviction Notice

Dr B. has planned an eviction. Nugget’s getting relocated August 4^th whether he/she likes it or not. The rent is no longer being paid and it’s time to move on. Eek! Eviction—sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Hubby’s boss called it that and I thought it was a) funny, and b) appropriate considering they are non-profit lawyers who deal a lot with people getting screwed out of money and/or housing. So anyway, this babe’s got an expiration date and I am a-ok with that. I am quite curious what “real” labor would feel like, so I am rooting to pop before then, but that’s still a week early so I suppose nature says it’s not very likely. However, I have learned not to rule out things which are not very likely, so I keep hoping.

Perhaps the next post will involve good tidings of great joy? Not to compare this wee one with Jesus or anything, but it sure is going to feel like a miracle. Yippeee!

more birthday news

Wyatt’s birthday ended up being great. I had a little boo-hoo toward the end of the day, but mostly it was just a great day of hangin’ with Hubby and Pup and being together. We did some errands, which sounds horribly un-birthday, but they kept us busy. We also went on a hike, seeing a rattlesnake, which is quite exciting and also kept us busy in a different way. Hubs made a deeelicious homemade cake, we put a big “1” candle on, lit, and sang happy birthday around. That was a little sad, but then we ate the cake which helped to make up for it. One Wyatt birthday down, only every other one for the rest of my life to go…

Today is MY birthday. I’d rather have a poopy baby’s birthday to celebrate, but whatever. I actually had a much bigger cry today than I did on Wyatt’s big day. It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, right? Only I didn’t really have a party. I did get a massage, go out to breakfast, have a good doctor’s appointment, watch a movie on the couch, and diddle around relaxing and doing whatever I wanted. So that’s good. And of course we made new cake, which always helps. It killed my last year’s birthday, if that matters to you. 

About that doctor’s appointment: we set an induction date. If Nugget BabyHood2 doesn’t come before August 4^th we are going to go in there and get it on out. I can’t wait to find out if it’s a boy or a girl; saying “it” is getting kind of creepy. Oh, and I can’t wait to see a living newborn squiggle onto my chest, hear a living newborn’s cries, look into a newborn’s—my newborn’s—open, confused eyes, and hopefully bring one home. It’s going to be so hard, but it’s going to be so amazing. Extra amazing because of Wyatt. I’ll keep you posted. 

while I don't really care, I wouldn't be
sad if my newborn baby was as cute as this one

Observation

Well, I suppose we couldn’t expect to make it all the way without a hiccup. Our hiccup was stressful nonetheless. We went in to the non-stress test, no “non-stress” test, as usual and ended up in an Observation Room at the labor and delivery ward. Yikes! At the doc’s I got my belly hooked up to the monitors and everything regular and normal like that. But when Dr. B came in to take a peek he kind of poked around, fiddled with some extra paper coming off the chart, and when he finally looked at it turned red and said “Well, the baby’s got a low heart rate so let’s just get you over to labor and delivery for some more observation.” He still had the kind smile, but he was definitely in serious mode. We didn’t even get the pink paper to give the receptionist, and I sure didn’t get to tinkle in the cup because we were being ushered out of there so fast. Talk about unsettling!

On the ten minute drive—thank goodness it wasn’t longer—I basically psyched myself up for an emergency c-section. What’s the big deal about surgery when you can get a living baby out of it? (Once I settled on an emergency c-section being okay I started to worry about everything that could possibly be wrong with Baby2…but that’s another tale). The only reason I didn’t think the baby was dead and have complete hallucinogenic flashbacks of Wyatt’s death was because it was kicking the crap out of me the whole ride. So that was nice. Of course when we got to the hospital nothing was wrong. They hooked me up to some more equipment and we watched HGTV for an hour while they monitored the nugget. Since absolutely nothing was wrong, there was no low heart rate at all, they then let me go (after signing some papers—silly lawyers). So, panicking for nothing—phew—and thankful the doctor is on his toes. And maybe Nugget is just practicing it’s resting metabolic heart rate for when it’s a world class athlete?

More testing!

So I’ve started a weekly regimen of non-stress tests(NSTs). As far as tests go, I suppose they aren’t that stressful. However, I still  dread the day when, for whatever reason, they become stressful. But there’s nothing I can do about that day until it happens, so in the mean time I will tell you about my new friend the NST. My high-risk doctor friend recommended we start NST-time “at the time of your last loss,” and since I am now the most pregnant I have ever been we commence.

Basically, you lie down in an exam room and you get a giant elastic belt strapped around your ever-expanding belly. Then someone lubes up a big paddle which looks for the baby’s heartbeat. Said paddle is strapped underneath the aforementioned elastic. Baby’s heartbeat hopefully fills the room like a wild stallion stampede. You can zone out or listen, whatever you like. But you do have to push a button when you feel Baby move. If you see a doctor who has updated his equipment in the past 20 years then you a) probably have more high tech gadgets than I do and b) might even have an ultrasound do the button-pushing for you by visualizing the actual movements. A chart is automatically filled out which shows Baby’s movements and heartrate (it should go up as the nugget moves, naturally). If you are lucky, like me, Hubby comes and plays on his smartphone in the corner so you are not alone with the stallions and computer that reminds you of playing “Chopper” on a floppy-disk in 1^st grade. The doctor will check the chart after 10 minutes or so, and hopefully you can be on your way because all is well. Since Nugget passed its first test, this was our experience. I hope we can keep it up for 11 more weeks. At least this baby will get some practice and be able to own other babies at NSTs by then. 

Super Doctor

She’s not really a super doctor, like some super hero or something, but her office is pretty super compared to our regular one. And she gives tons and tons of information, citing “the literature” and such. The ultrasound machine is pretty super too, but in the end that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we went back to the high-risk doc (she had the same old, brown, ski racing, hooded sweatshirt on) and all was well. Nugget was measuring exactly, to the day, as it should be. Nugget was moving all around. Nugget still had four heart chambers, two brain hemispheres, a full spine, all the necessary limbs and appendages, and even got the hiccups for us. Good job Nugget! I was told my heartburn medicine is acceptable, I can play golf if I want, and that there’s still no reason to think what happened “last time,” as they tend to say, should occur again.

Since I wanted to throw up on the drive over there, it was an extra good appointment. (Minus the 45 minute wait in the lobby with literally three copies of old Popular Mechanics issues and one pamphlet on menopause to read. And no windows.  But who’s complaining?). 

The growth scan

Does Nugget look something like this?

Well, Nugget is growing on track. Maybe a little small, but not small enough for the doctor to freak me out and not enough to change anything I’m doing. I suppose I could eat more, even though I already feel like I eat every time I’m hungry and then some, but I suppose I don’t need to be making my own prenatal advice. Doc took a bunch of ultrasound measurements (and recorded it on DVD for us—how modern!) and came up with a 23 week 2 day “gestational age.” According to the first “dating” ultrasound, Nugget’s supposed to be 24 weeks old. So it’s not that big of a difference…but every little thing can make me wonder, especially this time around. Anyway, it was cool to check in again on the bones and organs and little profile growing in there.

Apparently, it has Hubby’s head shape, which is long and skinny rather than circular like most babies’. This made that measurement hard to get, and the doctor kind of laughed when Hubby asked “what does that mean?” “Well, it looks like one of you” said the doctor, giving Hubby’s head the once over and not feeding into Hub’s insecurity about his alien-head. Apparently Nugget is an active baby too, so that’s super. The wiggling made it so we didn’t see any private parts and therefore learn about them by accident. Of course we took home the DVD and watched it to see if we had any ideas. Which we don’t. I can’t even tell when we’re looking at a stomach or a placenta, let alone miniature genitalia, really. Doc said he “didn’t really look but has a good idea” so we can’t tell if we think that means there was a penis which is easy to spot, or a lack of penis which is also easy to spot. That’s okay because even if the suspense is difficult to manage it’s fun to have no clue! Everything looks good is really a good enough report. 

Kidneys? Check.

We went in for the “anatomy scan” which most people consider the “what kind of pee-pee? scan” but really is used for much more important things, such as making sure the baby is growing right and that it has fused it’s little spinal pieces together, has a brain, etc., etc. If you’re like me, you don’t want to know about the privates anyway so the whole thing is just a crazy, unbelievable science experiment. Really, it’s all x-ray vision and skeletal-outline and intense-close-up on stuff like the four (hopefully) heart chambers, two (hopefully) brain hemispheres, ten fingers, ten toes, and anything else structural you might need to know about. They look up the baby’s nostrils for cripe’s sake. How do they do it? Half the time I found myself getting emotional and excited about something cute only to hear it was the…placenta. Seriously. They check for the major organs and look for “markers” of genetic and chromosomal abnormalities. Naturally they can’t check for everything that could possibly go wrong, but I’m feeling pretty good after they said everything looked normal and on target. Whatever happened to Wyatt sure wasn’t visible on any ultrasound, so it doesn’t make me feel totally secure, but for now it’s all I have and I’ll take it.

This is not the Nugget but shows how
 intense the ribs look!

I definitely had to squeeze Hubby’s hand a few times when I got nervous. For example, the tech lady would say “Ok, now we’re going to check the baby’s spine is complete” and I would instantly panic and have flashbacks about that time I was just barely pregnant and went in a hot tub which of course I have read can possibly raise my temperature high enough to maybe cause spina bifida which causes defects of the spine. Or “now we’re measuring the size of some body parts which will give us some ratios that tell us about potential chromosomal defects” so I imagine the head being twelve times larger than the stomach which probably means the baby will die tomorrow or turn into a hippo or something ridiculous. But Hubby’s hand withstood my crunching and our dear new Nugget passed the tests for now. 

As a bonus, the tech and doctor said that the baby was very modest and was not about to show its private parts even if we had wanted to know. So somehow I got someone who cares about being naked, hmm. 

And it’s a whopping 9 inches tall. You go, baby. 

Superbowl meltdown (off-field)

Oh jeez, who would have though Superbowl Sunday could bring me to tears? Well, I’m sure plenty of Pittsburgh Steelers fans maybe cried that evening, but I was happy not to see them win again. That’s not the point though, the point is I came home from the game and cried on the couch for a good hour, desperately upset about a stupid stroller I saw at the party we went to.

We bought Wyatt a stroller. The day, literally, before he was born. We’re lucky it re-sold so damn fast on craigslist once we were brave enough to post it (we made $10—cha-ching!) because I just wanted to throw it in the highway every time I had to step around it in the garage. Our Superbowl party hosts, Hubby’s boss and wife, are about halfway through “their” first pregnancy (it feels weird to say it belongs to both of them, but I guess it does, and it’s easier to write it that way). 

They had a stroller and car seat set-up in their basement, where we watched the game. Luckily, I didn’t see it until our walk out (too many drunken people between my perfect viewing position and the back wall) because it sent shivers down my spine. I immediately panicked for them: what if their baby dies now? By the time we got home I couldn’t stop remembering I was pregnant and I had my own Nugget to worry about. What if my baby dies now that they bought a stroller? Wait, that makes no sense. IT DOESN’T MATTER. It made me cry forever. Finally a Tom Brokaw documentary about the guy who had to rip off his own arm in the Utah canyons distracted me. It was a good show. But it didn’t make me completely forget the first stroller I ever bought for my first baby and how we’ll never get to use it. Sigh. 

Surgery + recycling = please reschedule, Joey

I had my three months check up today and it was fine. I say fine in the exact sense of the word: meh. It was not great, but it was not awful. It was not memorable for good or bad things. It wasn’t really happy and uplifting, but there wasn’t any bad news either. It just kind of was, and this is not the experience I am looking for in my “state.” I had to reschedule from an early morning time to 11:15 because the good doctor was going to be in surgery. I hope said surgery made a crying, pooping, healthy baby. Anyway, after this visit I recommended to myself that I not reschedule for the same day any more if they ask me. Once was enough, and here is why:

We waited the usual time in the waiting room which is a wonderful three minutes, approximately. Then I got weighed and we went into the exam room. So far we have only been in one of the four rooms, the one with the ultrasound machine from 1988, so I suspect it is a kind of segregation for pregnant ladies. Blood pressure was taken, as usual, and I asked if I could do the urine sample now instead of at the end because man did I have to pee. For some reason I always get nervous I won’t “produce” so I chug water on the drive and then really have to go by the time I get there. Anyway, she said no, I had to wait, which made me suspect we would be having an ultrasound because they like your bladder to be full so it pushes on the uterus and makes Baby more visible. This was a good thing. Waiting 20 minutes for the exam to begin while having to pee that much was the negative side. When Doc finally arrived, he asked me if I was “showing” yet. Last visit he told me I would be showing by this visit. Since I am not, I said “no, not really” and he said, “hmm, you should be showing by now” and instantly made me feel nervous and guilty. I swear, I’m trying to show, if that’s good! Then, he had me lie down and blobbed some gel on my belly to find the heartbeat. This was immediate and thunderous, which is good. We listened for about twenty seconds and he didn’t even tell us what the heart rate was, which is bad. Then he switched on the ol’ ultrasound and rubbed the wand over the previously applied gel and we got to see Nugget, which is good. He took a couple measurements which showed perfect growth and Nugget did a few punches before taking a nap, which is also good. This lasted less than, oh, 60 seconds, and we couldn’t get a good picture, which is bad. Then he asked me a couple questions, I asked him a question, and he was out the door. It was unclear if the visit was over, so Hubby and I made some faces at each other, but he came back with a business card for something and was even more rushed and then left for real. I got to give my urine sample, which is good. The more I thought about what just happened (because it felt like it did “just happen” and I didn’t really get to participate) I felt disturbed by the brevity, which is bad. As we got in the car we saw Doctor taking out the office recycling to his car, which is funny.

Hubby assures me it was a good visit because we did not hear any bad news, get lectured, or have extra time spent on anything. I have to agree, but the rest of it combined with the good part makes me really call it just fine.

what's in a due date?

According to some random statistics, only about 5% of babies are born on their estimated due dates. According to different random online statistics, 35% of babies are born in the week after their due date; this is the most popular week. It seems first time babies tend to be later than other babies, and that gestational age at birth may be somehow genetic (if we believe random online statistics found through Google and other such sources). Since my mom had both my brother and me early and Hubby’s mom had them both late (brother-in-law was 2.5 weeks late, eek!), I’m hoping it’s passed on from the old maternal grandma’s side, if it’s passed on at all. Obviously this exact inherited baby-popper-outer-mechanism would involve only the perfectly incubated babies, those who come into the world when they’re good and ready, not because they or their moms have problems for which nature or medicine deems early arrival necessary. Hmm. My own statistical knowledge is really about stillbirths, which occur in somewhere around 1/170 to 1/200 births. .05%. Lucky me.

Back to the due date: we got one. This nugget’s coming on or before 8/10/11. Doc said he wouldn’t let me go past that due date, and I’m sure as that time approaches I will be more than ready to take him up on that offer. Too bad it’s, like, still seven whole months away. Eesh. Between now and then, I believe I will find and watch the movie Due Date, starring Robert Downey, Jr., and Zach Galifianakis because it looks amazing. Hubby and I died when the commercial came on and it showed Robert Downey, Jr. saying, “Hey, I can’t believe we made it! I could kiss you!” (not an exact quote) and then the other guy with the crazy name gets all giggly and tries to squirm away from the kiss and completely drives off the highway overpass. They don’t die, so it’s funny. Can’t wait. I might even watch it twice.

Photo Sesh #1

We got to see the little nugget yesterday, his/her first onscreen appearance. We already have a repeat date for a second photo session in two weeks because it wasn’t cooperating and letting nice ol’ Doc get a good photo and measurements. Rascal! However, it cooperated enough to show a booming heart beat which, as we know, was majorly stressing me out. I’m not too keen on statistics this time around, but statistics do tell me that seeing a heartbeat is majorly good news. Needless to say it lifted a load off my shoulders, although if I’m not exactly trusting what I hear I’m not sure why it helps…

This doctor is the bomb. He already noted that I could see him more often than “normal” pregnant ladies, and it sounds as if he is even going to suggest I come in more often than “normal” without me freaking out and asking him for visits in lieu of a script for anxiety medication. Phew. His PA is also rad. She rules at finding my veins, which is usually a complete puzzle for those blood-taker types. I like watching the needle go into my arm, is that weird?

They also have a magical pee-collector set-up where I get to look at up to two other “samples” just sitting in the bathroom. What would happen if I spit it one? I asked myself this twice already and it’s only just begun!

PS. Here is a crazy Google image of a 6 week fetus. yum!

Still there, phew

So far, every morning I go pee and simultaneously check for any signs of blood. Morbid, right? But I can’t help it. Every little twingy cramp, every time I feel “off,” every time I read something scary, my first wonder is if I’m not pregnant anymore. So many pregnancies end in miscarriage, and then, as we’ve learned, so many end after that, I just can’t get in into my head that this is real yet. I want to believe, and I even made Hubby buy me some baby stuff for Christmas (although it was really just this week and I won’t be putting it under the tree), but it’s hard to be convinced of it yet. I suppose that’s normal for someone who’s been burned like me, so I guess I don’t feel badly about it, but still, it stinks. I almost chickened out of blogging my good news for fear of jinxing myself. I’m really not even superstitious*.

You know what though? It’s exciting, and I feel like people will be psyched to hear the news (although I might just wait until the birth announcement to tell people so there’s no chance I’ll have to “untell” because man did was that terrible). They want us to be happy, and they know we want a baby, so they probably assume a new baby will make us happy. Transitive property and all. I just hope they don’t forget this one is Baby #2 and we all still need extra hugs for Baby #1, that little nugget Wyatt. I hope my uterus is one sticky, nutritious bitch this time!

*In my last post I had to use a different pregnancy test image from before, just in case. So I guess I am superstitious. Whatever.

High fives, round two

Hubby has been walking around like a peacock in heat. I don’t know zoology, but I imagine that is when they get all cocky and big and fluff up their feathers and think they are amazing like some annoying high school quarterback who just won the game in a young adult-type movie. This—Hubby’s hubris, not the movie—is because I’m up the duff. I like that saying. It sounds British, but I may have heard Juno say it. Not sure. Either way, Hubby is peacocking around because he believes it is his incredibleness that has made this embryo. I tried to convince him it was partly my doing but he’s pretty convinced he has super sperm. Yeah, we’ll see if something comes out healthy in several months. At that point I will lay praise on dear old Hubs. For now, a second round of high fives to my womb please.
And lots of happy thoughts and positive energy for Wyatt's sibling to get all the way out here!

dare I say, an upward swing?

I’m not sure if admitting this will immediately backfire (I’m not necessarily superstitious…but I’d rather be safe than sorry), so I’ll knock on wood before telling you that things have been looking up lately. I’m not sure if it was Wyatt’s due date passing; I wouldn’t be pregnant anymore anyway (well, hopefully). Or maybe it’s just the passing of time; my grandfather always says “Father Time marches on” and boy does he. Maybe it’s that other things are beginning to have appeal again, so I can focus on them instead of how pissed I am that I have to job hunt rather than change diapers or that I still have five pounds to lose but I can’t figure out where it went since my “normal” clothes all fit again and I feel fine (that I even know I weigh more than before is due to Hubby’s interest in the scale at the gym because he wants to see if he is “getting huge” so obviously I like to play that game too—digression). Maybe it’s that I finally have health insurance after all that hassle. Maybe it’s that I’m not as desperate to have a new baby as I was in the beginning. Maybe it’s that I visited my friend with the newborn boy and it was fine (he was just another wrinkly, crying baby—not mine). Whatever it is, I’ll take it. It feels nice to think about other things, worry about other things, and feel like, at least some of the time, things will be okay.

I’m not saying I don’t continually do research (and then worry about the new things I find that could go wrong “next time”) or get excited about the possibility that I could make another baby soon. I’m not saying I don’t miss him every single day. But I am saying, at the risk of jinxing myself, that things are getting better. And for me, that’s a big admission.

Past due...

Wyatt was due this week. While I understand only 10-20% of babies actually come on their due date, it was a big date for me. Even though Hubby and his brother were late, and my brother and I were early, it was the best guess we had, you know? Since January we have had 10/14/10 stamped on our brains. We eagerly awaited October, curious about what would happen along the journey. We carved out October as a month of potential arrival. This is when all our last minute baby shopping would have taken place, and also when I would have been a huge, complainy person because I would have been uncomfortable and impatient. Instead, life went on without him. We found out he was a "him" almost three months early. I am not huge, and I am not complaining about pregnancy-related things (just other things, like health insurance). But 10/14 wasn’t that bad. I thought it would be terrible. I thought I would have to waste away on the couch with two boxes of tissues, the photo album, and sad movies. But I didn’t. Life went on. As it tends to do. My mum sent a beautiful homemade tapestry for her “mountain grandson,” and we received a couple nice cards from other parents and grandparents, etc. Someone dedicated the half-marathon she was running to Wyatt. Why she was running a half-marathon in the first place is beyond me, but I digress. Most people didn’t even know the significance of the date, which I think helped us just get through it. What’s a due date anyway? It’s not like the library where we get fined for being late. It’s not like a race where you get props for being early. It just is what it is. And now it’s gone. I do feel a small weight has been lifted, which is a nice side-effect, but I still feel very heavy in my heart.

the Unknown

I knew there was a good chance we would never know for certain what happened to our baby, why he died in the womb at 27 weeks’ gestation, 13 weeks before he was due to join us and several weeks before he would have been even remotely okay if he was born alive. Even though I knew the likelihood of not finding an answer, it still makes me mad and scared out of my mind. There’s just nothing I can do about it.

All dozen blood tests came back normal. My blood is normal. My genes are normal. I am not carrying any crazy infections, diseases, or mutations that could have caused him to die. This means they don’t have any more tests for me. And because Wyatt’s chromosome test was good, they don’t even have to look at Hubby (which is a shame because I bet he is a huge blood-test wimp). While this is great news for a future pregnancy (12 fewer things to worry about—out of the now million running through my head, great), it is crappy news for Wyatt. Why can’t we figure it out? Why can’t we get an answer? It stinks thinking we’ll have to go with the doctors’ “most likely it was _____” explanations. In our case, it was the umbilical cord—the wrong color and shape, too small near his little belly-button-to-be. But it’s only “most likely” that was the cause. So what “really” was it? Oh, how I wish I could know. Maybe he can tell me when we meet again someday.

friends and family= A+

We left Colorado for the week; two great people who I’m lucky to have as friends tied the knot in beauteous Vermont and we got invited. Yay! So, we took my mom up on her offer of a free “companion” ticket she can’t use, borrowed a car, visited my family, went to the wedding, and are visiting Hubby’s family too. I know I will never go back to New England without making the rounds—it’s stupid to not have time for people we love. I think losing my baby (he’s not lost, technically, but it’s a simple way to say it I guess) made me realize that I have to get over myself, my introversion, the fact that sometimes people tire me out, and just visit friends and family whenever I can. They won’t always be there, and I sure as hell don’t want to miss ‘em while they’re here! I guess I didn’t really avoid these kinds of people before, I’m not that lame, but now more than ever I want to put myself out there and be pushy and insert myself in their lives at every opportunity. I feel ridiculous that my baby had to die for me to really think about it this way (there must be a better lesson plan somewhere), but such is life I suppose. It’s not easy, it’s not straightforward, it certainly isn’t fair, and even when it feels crappy we have to try to make the most of it. It’s all we can do. A wedding is a good distraction; the dance party was amazing, I chugged a beer for the first time in…a long time…and we got to focus on some happiness with tons of funny people we love and hope to share our lives with forever. That’s so cheesy and a little preachy and I just don’t care.

sharing sad stories

So, I already mentioned hubby and I joined a support group. On the drive up to the first one my heart was beating out of my chest because I was so nervous; not sure why, but that’s me. This is also when I am most talkative (aka talkative at all) and I ruined the NPR story for Hubby, but that’s another tale. Now, after getting that first drive out of my system, and we only have one meeting left, I am super sad it is almost over. I want to keep going! I want to keep sharing stories with these kind strangers. I want them to be my friends. I want to follow their lives and see them when they have happy times come to them. I want them to try to have more babies and have successful pregnancies and then see those fat, screaming babies alive and kicking in their stupid hospital photos! I want to talk to them about something other than miscarriage, stillbirth, and little baby deaths. Instead, we have one more meeting.

At least with email we can keep in touch and I can, at the risk of being skeevy, pry into their lives once in a while. And at least we are having a potluck dinner.

Facing the world

Well, life goes on whether you want it to or not. I mean, duh, I always knew that, but it’s certainly hit me harder recently. Three weeks after losing Wyatt I had to go to a wedding. And be a bridesmaid in it. If you recall, Ed Purveyor of Bridesmaids’ Dresses was THE first person to learn about my pregnancy (aside from Hubby). I had no idea what giant sized-dress to order for a 7.5 months pregnant me; he suggested my bust was going to just about explode (which it eventually did. See: Boob Takeover); I thought I’d be better safe than sorry and just go huge. This dress had a special meaning to me; I was planning to be a plump purple maiden at my good friend’s wedding and I wanted a dress 8 sizes bigger than normal just to be sure I could do the job right. I wanted to be the glowing beauteous bellied babe standing by my bride-friend in all her glory. I wanted an excuse to duck out of the party and sit out the lame dances! For all these reasons, a few weeks in advance I went to the good seamstress’s place, explained my situation (like it wasn’t obvious), and paid an inordinate amount of cash to make this dress look good. So, let me admit that even thinking about going back into the seamstress’s shop to face her and pick up that stupid dress after I lost my baby made me tear up. Or more than tear up, but who’s tracking details.

Brave ol’ Hubby pulled through for me. Since my boobs hadn’t grown (not even a budge!), and since bride-friend picked a pregnant-friendly empire waist, I was able to just about fit perfectly into the dress. It was horrible. It was like I never had anything in there in the first place. Nobody knew my story. Wyatt wasn’t there. I didn’t have an excuse to pig out like I did and I had to dance to Madonna. Oy.