February 2009, Part One

I heard from H via instant message – he’d been served. Frankly, I was glad the process server people had finally tracked him down. The waiting was starting to irritate me.

He made a few excuses for ignoring me for a while, but his excuses only served to irritate me. I found that I had a lot less patience with him than I had before. Before, it was just me, and if he hurt my feelings, fine. But now I had my little berry-sized baby to think about. I was no longer the only one being slighted, and I wasn’t going to tolerate it.

H sent me an instant message a few hours later. Did I know what I was having? I told him I hadn’t found out yet, but that I expected to at my next appointment. He said he was going to write me a long e-mail soon explaining some of his behavior to me – it never came, and he had more excuses.

The next day, at S’s suggestion, I met with another of the couples I’d liked on-line. My feeling at that time was that, if I chose adoption, I would go with the first couple I met. So you can imagine my surprise at finding I liked the second couple just as much as the first. They were wonderful people, and I wished I could give a baby to them as well as to the first couple.

I decided I wasn’t even going to meet the third couple, because if it was this hard to choose between two couples, how on earth was I going to choose between three?
And yet, when I really stopped to think about it, I realized that part of my problem was becoming that I didn’t feel really, really good about either couple. I was trying to decide which couple felt the least wrong to me, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

I sent H an instant message a few days later. I wanted to know his blood type, since I’m Rh negative. If he was Rh negative, too, I’d be in the clear, but if he was positive, I was going to need a shot to keep my blood from messing with the baby’s blood. So I asked H what his blood type was, and he told me it was either gravy or Miller Lite, depending on the day. I resigned myself to getting a Rhogam shot and decided not to push the issue.

I had dinner with the first couple I met. I liked them even more but I didn’t feel ready to make a decision yet. I had hoped that a second meeting would make the decision easier, but I felt more confused than ever. I prayed for guidance but didn’t have any strong feelings one way or the other.

I had my ultrasound to look forward to, at least. I knew somehow that my baby was a girl, but I couldn’t be certain until I’d been told by someone who knew what to look for. The days before my appointment were interminable. I wanted so badly to get a glimpse of the little invader in my belly.

It was marvelous! Every little part was perfectly formed and in place – although how the ultrasound tech could tell one tiny blob from another was beyond me. But everything was perfect, right down to the teeny-tiny profile of my baby girl. The ultrasound tech asked me what I thought I was having, and I was rather smug when I was proven right. However, my little spud was stubborn and wouldn’t get into a position where all four chambers of her heart were visible at once, so I got another scan scheduled for 10 days hence. I didn’t care much about that – my baby was healthy and happy, and I had pictures to prove it!

One of my first thoughts on finding out my baby was a girl was that the second couple I’d met with had a little boy already, and how nice it would be if they had a little girl, too. But the next day, when my mother discussed adoption with me again, I had a mini-meltdown. The ultrasound had made it very real. My pregnancy felt more and more real by the day, and while I had been able to consider giving up a baby who was mostly theoretical, the idea of giving up a very real baby hurt me down to my DNA.

I told myself I didn’t have to think about it just yet, because I had another hurdle to jump. I had to tell my brothers and sister that I was pregnant, and I couldn’t put it off much longer.