the big reveal

my secret is finally out - I'M HAVING A BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i've been dying to write about it for weeks. i mean, my life is changing in these indescribable ways. the things going through my mind. how utterly sick i've been. how completely disgusting it's all been (from the aches and pains in bizarre places, the gag reflex with a mind of its own, farting like a frat boy, and feeling like a fat pig). crying one minute, laughing the next. and how utterly terrifying.

i'm an old mom, so from the moment i walked into the doctor's office for my first pre-natal appointment, it's been all doom and gloom, "at your advanced maternal age..." and yes, they used those exact words, "advanced maternal age." the risks of every possible horrible thing that can go wrong multiplied into infinity. downs syndrome, cystic fibrisos, taye sachs (and there was a terrible article about living with and loving a baby dying from taye sachs in the weekend new york times). genetic this, genetic that.

so i opted for the invasive first trimester procedure whereby chunks of my placenta were painfully extracted so as to take a snapshot of my baby's genetic make-up. we were looking for any genetic abnormalities that could get in the way of my baby having a healthy, normal life. turns out all the worry was for naught as i'm having a healthy, perfect, baby girl, due in the middle of april.

but for all the weeks between finding out i was pregnant (the day before my honeymoon) and getting those results, i was terrified, stressed, a complete ball of nerves. my entry several days back about how lonely i've been feeling was probably just a reaction to the angst that was consuming my every thought and my every breath. imagine falling in love with this little bundle of cells, growing fast and furious deep inside your own body, hoping, praying, begging whatever god listening that everything's going to be okay, that that bundle of cells is growing into a perfect little baby, all whilst knowing that everything is completely out of your hands. add into the mix that you're a control freak of epic proportion. and boom. you have what i've been feeling for the past nine weeks. all the makings of insanity.

until last friday morning when i got the call that she's perfect... for the first time in months, i could breathe.

now that the "morning" sickness is gone, the stress has dissipated, and i'm feeling confident about an easy road for the next few months, everything feels normal again. in my life, in my marriage, at work, i feel like a productive, happy, _sane_ person.

i've no doubt that my three months of insanity won't be my last. i am, after all, becoming a parent. and if i'm a parent to a child anything like me, insanity is only just beginning... or so i can hope.

~k