Ready Player Two

(Post carried over from Up To The Surface blog)

Trying to have a baby on purpose is a lot more nerve wracking 

Than finding out you’re pregnant when it was unplanned. 

Maybe others will disagree with me,

But trying to plan it adds a whole new level of “emotional roller coaster” 

to the process.

When you find out you’re having a baby out of the blue,

The baby is already there and now you just have to 

Come to grips with the reality that you will be a parent

Holding a delicate, fragile live baby in another eight months.

When you start decorating a nursery 

Creating a registry 

And telling all of your friends,

It can actually make it exciting 

when it had been terrifying before.

Now you want to have another baby.

You actually want that, as in “baby fever”.

You have to think about timing-

Where you’ll be in your job or your home buying plan

And how old your first child will be, etc etc.

You also have to think about timing in the sense of 

“what time of the month is it?”

Because you can’t just conceive all willy nilly.

You have to time it just right with ovulation.

Now you’re envisioning nine months later when

You’re brining home another tiny miracle with a sweet face.

Your roller coaster is climbing the track.

You follow a calendar, 

But you still get your period.

The roller coaster plummets.

You try some new vitamins, new tea, a cleaner diet.

The roller coaster climbs again.

Still, you’re unsuccessful.

If this goes on long enough,

You start to worry that maybe the first baby “broke” your insides.

Or being a few years deeper into your 30’s 

Has somehow resulted in the reproductive system checking out,

never to work correctly again.

The roller coaster plummets again.

Then it finally happens... you don’t get your period.

But it happens during a time that’s rather stressful in your life

So you wonder if it’s just late from that.

Still, it doesn’t start.

The roller coaster does a loop-de-loop.

You take a test.

Caution optimism.

There are two lines.

The roller coaster is shooting sky high now.

You have gotten past the first major cause of anxiety.

 

But there are so many hurdles to overcome

Before the ride is over.

There is waiting for the first doctor appointment

Where you can look and see the tiny blip on the screen

And make sure it’s not in one of your fallopian tubes.

There’s the period of time that everything is risky,

And your body could decide to give up

Until about eleven weeks when the new life transitions

from an embryo to a fetus.

There’s the onset of morning sickness and exhaustion.

You don’t get to hear the heartbeat until 

The end of the first trimester,

So you wait to tell everyone

Just to be sure you’re out of the woods first.

Then there are blood tests to be sure there’s not

some life-threatening syndrome to worry about.

You feel much less anxious as you enter the second trimester

And you start to feel evidence that the life is there.

Little pokes and twitches.

You get to learn the gender from that blood test.

There are potentially still some hurdles,

But the ride is coming to an end,

And instead of a roller coaster 

It can just be smooth sailing for the most part.

This might be how it goes for me,

But there are countless other women out there

Who do suffer a loss before the end of the first trimester.

My sympathies go out to them.

 

My husband loves video games

And he has been collecting things that represent his childhood favorites.

He really wants our now two-year-old son 

To share the legacy with him-

Play many of these games and appreciate them.

One of the favorites is Super Mario Brothers.

He has collected so many Mario dolls, little figurines

And copies of the actual games.

So I decided to play on this theme.

For Halloween I dressed our two-year-old up as Mario.

We trick-or-treated dressed up as Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach.

Just before Halloween, I made this social media announcement

With the same Mario theme.

 

The same week as Halloween, I got a blood test done

That could tell me the baby’s gender.

I was only 12 weeks pregnant,

But I set up a party to reveal the gender

And the party also had a Mario theme.

If my two-year-old was Mario and also “Player One”,

Who was “Player Two” in this game?

Was it Luigi? Or Princess Peach?

 

 

 

 

It looks like on May 8, “Luigi” will be joining the game.

That is of course not his real name.