Continued from yesterday…

It was an unexpected response. I had long been fine with “whatever it is as long as it’s healthy.”  I knew boys, of course, and love having sons.

I felt suddenly emptied. Not sad, but emptied.

The doctor’s continued feeble jokes about my needing this ultrasound because I am “so young” — his assaholic way of saying I am an old preggo — stopped getting sympathy laughs from me.  I suddenly got very interested in the minutia of Baby Girl’s anatomy. Heart chambers, cerebral cortex, kidneys, amniotic fluid, movement, fingers and toes.

“Have you experienced any bleeding?”

The question only alarmed me because the nurse who did the initial scan not five minutes before asked me the same question.

“No.”

I then got an even-toned, almost mild, description of complete placenta previa. My placenta has centered itself directly over my cervix. In addition to the bottom of the uterus not providing the best blood flow for the placenta (thereby possibly causing problems for Baby), the kid has no exit.  We heard about how the placenta can move-but-not-move (as the uterus grows in the second half of pregnancy, what looked like the placenta being at the bottom could really be that it attached itself to a side.) Things-at-bottoms-of-balloons analogies were made.

Follow-up ultrasounds, rest, no heavy lifting, no sex.  With what he could see, possible early hospitalization, steroid shots to hurry along baby’s lung development, likely cesarean at 37 weeks.

But I was already numb.  Huzzy went pale.

“We’ll check again in 4 weeks. We’ll know more then.”

I didn’t even make the joke I had planned about bringing my fake ID to prove my real age. I thanked him, and we left.

Quiet in the car.

Huzzy asked if I was nervous.

“No.”

I asked him to keep information vague as we told family. I knew many relatives and in-laws were awaiting word: puppy dog tails or sugar and spice?  I didn’t want to lie about my placenta, but I didn’t want to give out information that we didn’t really have — but I did want to have people sort of on alert in case I needed help.

I want it all. And I want it now.

I was calm, my voice as soporific as the doctor’s had been.

I was dreading the calls.  I was dreading everything.

Everything.