so damn happy

i can't stop smiling. i cannot think when i was last this happy. maybe the day we finished hans's room and realized we were going to be his parents all at once. wow - that was more than a year ago.

so yesterday, i picked justin up from the dentist, whom he informed that i was his wife, not his mother (they called the day before to tell him that his mother's insurance was no longer in effect for him - idiots), and we headed to the hospital. i got hassled a while by the secretary about my new insurance, which at least made the waiting time seem shorter than usual. also, there weren't the usual 20 teenagers there with their mothers my age, although two cops did bring in a pregnant woman in prison scrubs and handcuffs. ah, the joys of urban living.

when the tech called me back to the room (yes, "the" room, the one where we learned hans died), she wasn't smiling like usual at me. she's probably sick to death of being stuck with me and my problem children. she wasn't the one who did hans's scan-o-death, but she did many of the others, where he was lagging behind and his kidneys were backing up, and she was the one who did the scan where the tadpole was deflating, and she did the scan two weeks ago that scared the bejeesus out of me and in which i tried to argue with her. i'm sure at this point she dreads coming to work when she sees my name on her schedule for the next day.

when i got up on the table, i thought she went awfully fast, although she did take the time to turn up the tuner so we could hear a few beats of the heart, which sounded very slushy to me. (in retrospect, i think i might have been listening to my own heartbeat, but i'm not sure.) i saw on the screen that she measured z at 8w5d - not what i was hoping for, but within a week of my 9w3d by lmp. then she made her notes in the computer and shut it off and we were left to wait.

i asked justin if he could see what she wrote, and he said, "103." my heart sank. that was it. at this point, 103 bpm means certain demise - it's just a matter of time. 103 meant that z was already in the process of dying. we sat there, me on the table and justin next to me in the chair, holding on to each other. i was thinking about starting school tuesday night, and wondering if the d&c could either be wednesday morning or friday morning, so i wouldn't miss any class. justin told me later he was wondering if he should take his four grieving days immediately or starting with the day of the d&c. i thought again about the beauty of getting high.

finally, the peri came in to do her own scan, and she got 9w2d. i perked up a little. she looked at the tech's measurements and gave a little "hmmm" and measured again from another angle - 9w0d. then a third time, from the other side - 9w2d. hmmm, indeed.

but what about the heartbeat, i asked. she zeroed in on z and the tiny flutter and frowned. "that doesn't look like 103," she said. and so she measured. 180 bpm. i started to cry and shake. she looked at the tech's measurement and showed us that she had been looking at the wrong line. when i stopped shaking enough, she took the heartrate again. 180 again. may i just say, hallelujah?

she went over my ovaries, and she showed us how the sac was starting to balloon nicely and causing my uterus to expand perfectly (hence that pressure i had begun to feel), and said everything was "cool," a couple of times. "cool" is my new favorite word.

we found out she and her husband spent a decade with doctors without borders and are fellow travel freaks, so we discussed vague foreign viruses and worms and bacteria and compared notes on which thing you get from which continent, and then yes, she did assure us that z would like indian food. how lovely. :) and she'll see us in about 2 1/2 weeks for the nuchal fold translucency scan. for the first time in a while, i'm actually looking forward to an ultrasound.

we went to talkies for a late breakfast and to unwind before i went to work, because i had been so tightly wound and didn't even realize it until we got back in the car. i had a giant hot chocolate and an onion bagel and looked at the photographs of crumbling, mid-century ads painted on the sides of various brick buildings around town, on display in the back room, and was pleased to see several i recgonized directly from my neighborhood. then i dropped justin at home, made plans to get indian food for dinner and headed to work.

it's been so hard to be at work lately. i haven't been able to concentrate, or to give a damn about brokers or balance sheets or contract changes. yesterday was no better, but at least it was for happy reasons for once. the second i had put in 40 hours for the week, i was in the parking lot, headed home in the rain to pick up justin.

in the afternoon, i had developed a deep yearning for beef. i don't indulge in it often. maybe i'm a little iron deficient, or maybe it's some crazy hormonal thing going, but i didn't want anything else. of course, an indian restaurant means no beef - lamb, sure, and plenty of chicken, but i was sol on beef. so i negotiated a compromise with justin - thai! thai means he can still have curry - and i can have beef. so we went to lemongrass and i ate an entire tray of pineapple beef. i was stuffed to the gills, but i couldn't leave beef on the plate and let that cow have died in vain, and i didn't want to bring leftovers in the house and make justin puke to find them in the fridge.

then we walked down the street to the cedar lee and saw "good night, and good luck" (great message, pretty good movie). as the closing credits rolled, i rested my hand on justin's knee and said, "you know i'm hungry again, right?" to his credit, justin didn't sigh or roll his eyes; he just nodded, yes, yes, of course. as we walked hand-in-hand through the rain to the car, justin said, "180, huh? no wonder you're so hungry all the time!" what a beautiful explanation: i'm constantly starving because part of me is burning calories at 180 bpm! i love this man so much.

we drove down the street to the peking gourmet and shared the dark chocolate tofu cheesecake and the raspberry pecan tart and a pot of tea and grinned at each other. from the placemats i determined that z will be a dog, according to chinese astrology. i just hope he's not one of those kids that barks.

when the server showed the next table the dessert tray, i noticed that what she called "death by chocolate" had been called "chocolate bomb" by our server. justin noted that bombs do cause death. yes, i said, but not always; sometimes they just maim you. but "maiming by chocolate" just isn't that sexy a name. other alternate names that are also not sexy:

• crippled by chocolate
• disabled by chocolate
• handicapped by chocolate
• disfigured by chocolate
• scarred by chocolate
• amputated by chocolate
• blinded by chocolate
• paralyzed by chocolate
• lessened quality of life by chocolate

maybe they should just stick to chocolate bomb.