Things We Don't Talk About

We don't really talk about the baby.

My pregnancy, yes, a baby resulting from said pregnancy, no.

I know that I am emotionally scarred and too terrified to start talking about a pregnancy in terms of a baby.  The future in regards to the pregnancy and baby is Jan. 19, ultrasound day, and not a day farther.  As though not talking about it somehow keeps it from being real and if it's not real then it can't be ripped away, and it's becoming clear that my husband may be experiencing something similar.

I'm pretty sure it's normal, even in these early weeks to have discussions about the baby's sex and maybe even begin throwing names out there, just to see if the other person is on the same page as you.  After all, it's supposed to be an exciting new time and what's the harm in starting to prepare early?

We did this with the first pregnancy, as we got closer and closer to that monumental 12 weeks, we began talking names and gender. We concentrated on boy names, since I was getting a very strong boy vibe from my uterus and even decided on a few that we liked.

I had also begun crib hunting online, since they always say it takes months to get a crib I figured I would see what was out there.  I came nowhere near a decision, but I looked.

Once I even took a walk through the stroller section of Target.

We were tiptoeing, but at least we were moving in the right direction.

With this pregnancy I don't know when we'll do all these things.  But I know we're not doing them now.

We've never talked about the gender of the baby.  There have been no, It's a Boy! No, It's a Girl! "fights" that many couples have.  I'm getting a boy vibe again, but I've never told Dom that and he's never asked.  The honest to god truth is that it doesn't even matter enough for a discussion.  We don't care.  At all.

We've never talked about names.  Why would I want to name something I might have to give up?  I'm glad we didn't know the sex of Baby A and I'm glad we didn't name it.  How much harder would it be to lose a son or daughter than just a baby of unknown gender?

We've never talked about what goes in the nursery and what needs to be done to make it a nursery.  We've in fact barely been able to call it the nursery again.  Most of the time that we've been in this house waiting to have a baby it's been the designated "crap" room, then it spent a brief few months as a nursery and then became the crap room again.  We've just barely, as we approach 10 weeks started calling it the nursery once more. Again, it's like if we begin making plans for a nursery then it's all "real" and it can all be taken away.

We have tickets to the Olympics in London next year, they're in August, the 2 weeks before my due date.  Consciously we know if all goes well we cannot go on this trip since I'll be about to give birth.  But we haven't made any moves to sell our tickets.

I think we're kind of frozen. 

Will Thursday's ultrasound change things for us?  Will be able to look farther into the future after that?  I don't know.  I do not know what emotions seeing a heartbeat at 10 weeks will bring.  After all, it's only a week and a half farther along than Baby A, is that far enough past that point to get excited?  To let our guard down a little.

Only time will tell.  2 more days...just 2 more days.