After sleeping in all week until at least 10am, today I had a midwife appointment at 9:30 and a chiropractor appointment at 11:15. I was up at 7am, getting some emails sent and starting my day. I even packed a lunch for work, knowing that I tend to eat crap while there. I had everything loaded into my car by 9:00, including my laptop. I started the car and there was a little bit of ice on the windows, so I got out to scrape them.

And that fucking car had locked its doors. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I do know that all four doors were locked and I was NOT getting in. Inside the car, along with everything else, was my cellphone. I did however have a housekey in my pocket… not that that did me a lot of good, as we do not have a house phone. I emailed Den, but he’s normally busy during the day and doesn’t always get emails soon as you send them. So I did what any normal pregnant woman would do in that situation: I started sobbing.

Trying to stay calm and think clearly while obviously panicking… not an easy thing to do. I waited a few minutes to chill out, then walked next door to the neighbor’s house… they’ve helped me out before. And they have a phone. But no one was home.

I was standing on their front porch with red-rimmed eyes, looking completely dejected and at a loss, when the neighbor pulled into her driveway. She rolled down her window and asked what was the matter. I explained and she handed me her cellphone and invited me into the warm car. So I called Den and blurted out the situation – car running, doors locked, doctor appointment in 20 minutes, panic, panic, don’t know what to do. Den said he was coming home right away to take me to my appointment – which totally wouldn’t work, I said, because it takes him 20 minutes just to get home, and it’s another 30 minutes to the hospital. Neighbor says, “Oh, don’t worry about it – I’ll take you!” and before I know it, she’s pulled out of her driveway and driving me to the hospital. (We have VERY nice neighbors. They will be getting a thank-you gift.) Den said he was going to go home anyways and try to break into the car. Or something. I left it in his hands. Thank the light for husbands, that’s all I can say.

What a way to start a morning, I tell you. I show up 15 minutes late to my appointment, with no wallet, no notebook, no nothing. It felt very odd being there empty-handed like that. Thank goodness they don’t need to see an insurance card or copay or anything or I’d really have been up the creek. My neighbor dropped me off, then came and found the waiting room after parking the car. She sat with me while I waited. We chatted. I felt bad for her that I had to wait as long as I did before I got called in.

The appointment started like any other. Weight (157.2lb), blood pressure (119/70 – not suprizing it was higher than normal!), pee in a cup. Go sit in a room by yourself for a while with nothing to do except concentrate on not farting horrifically. (Lovely pregnancy side-effect there.)

The midwife came in, introduced herself. I’d never met this particular one before, and I really liked her. She flipped through my file, asked me a couple of questions about how I was doing. Hahah. Yeah. I told her about my morning… and I told her that I’ve been much more emotional this week than I usually am. She asked if I was still on the same dose of Celexa (yes) and if I felt like this was the depression worsening or not. I told her honestly, no, I think it’s just trying to get everything done, pregnancy hormones, and generally being overwhelmed. She agreed with me on that and was quite satisfied that I knew what I was talking about. She did mention Celexa and breastfeeding… she actually pulled out a PDA and looked up Celexa. She too agreed that it was far more risky to switch my drugs than to breastfeed while on Celexa.

Anyhow, when we were done with our chat I hopped up on the table for a quick belly exam. The heartrate was good, same as usual – sounded funny, she said, because he was facing my back, so not as clear reception. But the beat itself was nice and strong. She pulled out one of those little tapemeasure things and measured my fundal height.

I got off the table and sat back down in a chair and she says I’m measuring a little behind… I havent shown much growth. I ask just what I measured? 28cm, she says. She pointed out it can be off by a cm or two, but at 4cm lower than it should be…. well she wants me to have an ultrasound done to check on the baby’s growth. She tells me to sit tight and walks out to check on ultrasound availability.

Twitch. Okay, so everything is probably just fine. Lots of things can affect fundal height, right? She said so herself. Maybe my stomach muscles are tight and holding things in. (I nearly laughed at her when she said that.) Maybe the baby is just laying in a funny position.

She comes back and tells me that the ultrasound techs are booked solid and running behind, but they can get me in at 2pm, can I come back? Well let’s see… having to drive back to the hospital in the middle of my already-full work day… or wait until Monday and have all weekend to stress over it. YES PLEASE, 2pm works perfectly. No problems coming back. Nope. And off they sent me on my way.

When my neighbor dropped me off at home my car was off, unlocked, and the keys were safely in the house. Den was gone. I had no idea what he did, but he saved the day. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! (Later I found out he’d pried my window open a bit and shoved a piece of wood down inside to press the window-down button. So in the end, having my car being ON and locked is what saved us. Had it been off we would have still been up shit creek.)

I called Den on my way to the chiro and thanked him… and then had to tell him about the possible problem with the baby. There was silence and, “What does that mean?” Well… I don’t know, honestly. Den decided to come to the ultrasound appointment with me. I had kind of expected he’d want to be there… not just for a chance to see the baby, but, you know, if there was something wrong… well he’d want to be there.

So 2:00 found me back at the hospital with my husband, sitting in the waiting room making small talk and jokes and trying not to think of bad things. I refused to let myself think of bad things. I had 99.9% confidence it would turn out to be nothing. Den… Den was scared. Trying not to show it, but he was scared.

We were shown into an ultrasound room, I hopped up on the table. The U/S tech said, “So they’re worried about baby being small, huh?” Squirted goo on my belly and put down the wand. In a matter of minutes she had measurements of his head, belly, and femur. “Baby’s not small,” she says. Relief!! Calculations place his weight at 3lb 14oz, right where he should be at this time. Sounds perfect to me. She takes a few more pictures… measures his heartrate (149), gets some photos of his spine (“Apparently last time he didn’t want to show his back”), goes back to the face. Which was down low. He’s definitely head-down, she confirmed.

So she’s trying to get a picture of his face, she’s jiggling the wand around. She switches to another, larger wand, and goes back to where his head is, jiggling him and cajoling him. “Come on baby, turn your head! Let me get a picture!” Nope. He didn’t want to. She had me lay on my right side. She had me lay on my left side. She had me sit up for a while. She tried for quite some time, but this baby was NOT going to let her peek at his face.

After a little while I figured out what the big wand was…. it’s a 3-D scanner. She’d hold the wand still and press a button, and the screen would scan in and up would pop a 3-D image! Unfortunately most her scans captured… well, not much. Random blobs of things. She tried again and again to scan his profile for us, but the kid was being totally obstinate. She said his hand was covering his face, pushing at the wand… and his feet were kicking at it too. Plus he wouldn’t turn his face towards the wand for anything.

In the end she got a couple of body part photos for us – which is far more than we expected to walk out with! Den was simply giddy with relief and the photos that we did get. I walked out still feeling rather dazed by the day. I can’t say I’m not a little excited to have some 3-D photos of him. I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed that we couldn’t get a photo of his face. But after everything that happened today… the car keys and the rushing around late for everything and the scare that something may be wrong with his growth… I don’t know. I still feel a little numb. And exhausted, to tell the truth. As excited as I am to have gotten another, unexpected glimpse of my baby, I’m upset that we had to have an ultrasound at all.

Here’s the photos that we did get…

The hand that kept pushing us away

A foot

An ear

And this was the best we could get of his face… the tech cleverly cut out some of the matter that was obscuring his face and revealed pouty lips and a wide nose.

I feel so emotionally drained. What a week.