It's been a long, long wait for David and me, but now there's no turning back: a baby is on the way! S/he was conceived on or shortly after 31 August, 2000, and so is "officially" due on 23 May, 2000, although I do expect to go "overdue" for various reasons. We were both very surprised to have conceived so quickly: although I had been off oral contraceptives for nearly two years, my cycles had been very long and confusing. [You can learn more about the Fertility Awareness Method of birth control/pregnancy achievement in Toni Weschler's "Taking Charge of Your Fertility," which was incredibly helpful for us in both avoiding pregnancy when the time wasn't right, and conceiving when it was.] In fact, the cycle prior to conception was 87 days long -- certainly not normal -- and I feared that it would take us many months of trying before we had success. However, the very next cycle, I ovulated on day 23, and we just happened to get the timing right! I had some inkling that I might be pregnant about 13 days after ovulation, as my luteal phase (the time span after ovulation and before menstruation) is usually about 12 days, but then on day 14, my temperature dropped, and I was very disappointed and vented at poor David, thinking that we weren't pregnant after all. But the next day, my temperature was back up, and we decided it was time to get a pregnancy test. We got a 2-pack just in case, and sure enough, the first one was (weakly) positive, with just a hint of a pink line showing in the test window! "Oh my goodness," said we, "What have we done?" But we were both very excited, and scared, and happy, and terrified... and I'm sure anyone who already has children knows exactly how we felt :) We used the second one the next day, and got a very definite positive, so there we were... expecting at last!
A few days after that (once the shock had lessened somewhat) I started calling around for health care providers. I knew I wanted a midwife, since I have seen and heard far too many horror stories about power-hungry doctors interferring with an otherwise normal birth... and even a lot of the "good" stories left much to be desired, in my opinion. Plus, since we don't have health insurance, a hospital birth with an OB would cost us upwards of $6000-$8000, which is just too much for a normal delivery. I called all the midwifery services listed in the area... but to my chagrin, all of the CNM's (certified nurse midwives -- trained first as nurses with the medical model, then as midwives) delivered in the hospital, and their fees were in the range of $2500-$3500, PLUS hospital fees (which would be another $2000 at least). I was really hoping for a birth center at most, certainly not the cold, sterile hospital (unless it was necessary), but alas, there are no birth centers in the area. In desperation, I looked under "midwives" in the Yellow Pages, and voila, there she was! When I called Celia, she sounded perfectly charming. She had been trained in Holland, where 99% of births are attended by midwives and there is a terrific system for homebirths in place. She has "caught" over 100 babies on her own, not to mention the many she observed in her extensive training; she is certified by the State of New Hampshire, and has her own homebirth-friendly backup OB, should anything go wrong during the delivery. My first visit with her would not be until I was 8 weeks pregnant; until then, she advised me to eat as well as I could, and consider taking a prenatal vitamin, which I had actually started taking before we conceived (to minimize the possibility of a spinal cord defect). (And her fees were much more reasonable, just $1750, which we could pay in installments. It's sad to think that money has to be a consideration for the birth of a child, but the US is not very friendly to those without insurance!)
The weeks went pretty slowly after that. I'd check out the "Visible Embryo" site every day, to see what was going on in the land of the uterus, but there really isn't much that can be done in the first trimester. I was nauseous most of the time, but I never actually threw up (thank goodness!). The one change I did notice was my already large bust size had increased rather significantly... and continues to do so even now! (Yikes!) And of course, I couldn't get enough sleep -- 12 hours a day felt like barely enough! My first appointment with Celia was as wonderful as our phone conversation; there were many questions on both sides, but never any discomfort with her presence (which is very calming and helpful).
David and I had decided not to tell our parents until we could see them all at once, to avoid any question of favoritism on our part. That meant waiting until we could find some reason to get them all together... a difficult prospect in the Fall, as the only major family holiday in the US at that time is Thanksgiving, at the end of November. We didn't want to wait *that* long, so we told our parents that the next UNH Symphony Orchestra concert would probably be my last, and that I wanted them to come for it. All three sets (my father & now step-mother, my mother & her SO, and David's parents), plus my siblings, decided they would come. Beforehand, my mom & her SO and my sister & brother-in-law had lunch, and my mother wondered why I had been so insistant about getting everyone together -- could I be pregnant? No, she reasoned aloud -- there's no way I could keep that a secret for so long! Little did she know :) Anyway, the concert went pretty well, though I was a big bucket of nerves, and afterwards, we told the bunch that we had something to show them in the building where we work, insighting a great deal of speculation on the way! I like to think of Morse Hall as a "cathedral to science" as it has a large atrium in the center, with great accoustics (in fact, they have concerts there monthly), and a sight in and of itself. Once everyone was assembled inside, I said, "I'm afraid I lied to everyone today. This probably wasn't my last orchestra concert... and we don't actually have anything to show you here. However, we would like to tell you all... congratulations [here some people started to clue in], because at the end of May, you will be grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, and uncles." Then the squealing began :) It was a great way to tell people, because none of them were left out (as they would have been if we'd tried to tell them separately) but it was SOOOO hard to wait so long -- I was 10 weeks by the time they knew!
Anyway, the rest of the first trimester was pretty uneventful. I had a couple of episodes of spotting ,but both were slight and not indicative of any problems (and upwards of 30% of women experience some spotting in the first trimester). I was very happy when the nausea started to fade and I could eat like a normal person again, and I started feeling much more awake and alert :)
On to The Middle!