bearing blog: Information theory.

06 August 2013

Information theory.

Tuesday morning we drove out to see the midwives for the first time this pregnancy. It seemed like such a long time to wait -- but sixteen weeks is finally here.

There is certainly something to be said for being in touch with your own body and not dependent on machines that go bing to tell you that everything is okay. Still -- I admit it! -- I must not have really felt like the pregnancy was really real until the Doppler came out, the wand probed at my belly, and there it was, the unmistakable whoosh whoosh whoosh at 140 beats per second.

I almost can't describe it. The whole rest of the day I felt as I ought to have felt the moment the two lines turned pink. Exhiliarated and apprehensive and -- happy. I have been holding back, apparently.

(The fetoscope didn't pick up the baby's heartbeat, not unusual at 16 weeks. I am glad the midwife will dust off her Doppler for me.)

+ + +

Today the whole family came along. The three-year-old and my daughter who turns seven tomorrow played with the old, gentle house dog; the nine-year-old and the oldest who turns thirteen in two days stayed up in the little bedroom with us to chat with the midwives. Yes, I am feeling fine. No, no hemorrhoids or varicose veins. No, I am not feeling any movement yet. No, actually, I am not perfectly sure of my dates. I had brought a photocopy of my last chart to show, all marked up -- here and here, it isn't the clearest temperature pattern but I am guessing that the temperature rise is either this date or that one. Split the difference between them and that's how I calculate that I am sixteen weeks along. I handed the copy to J. (midwife no. 1) and she looked at the numbers and fiddled with the pregnancy wheel, asked for a clarification to some of my notes, then nodded and agreed with my guesstimate.

"Planned, or happy accident?" asked V. (midwife no. 2), leaning over to take the chart from J.

"Planned," I answer (as if you couldn't tell from all the check marks). "In all my other pregnancies I had a much better handle on the temperature patterns, but I am seeing the cycles starting to kind of go perimenopausal, I think, and they are getting harder to interpret. So I can really only nail this one down to a two-week window."

Maybe I should have felt weird about explaining all that in front of my two older boys, but I found that I didn't. I suppose that a good deal of the chart-explaining was mysterious, if they were even paying attention. They neither asked questions nor interrupted. I decided not to press them, but just to let them be, there on the periphery.

+ + +

Afterwards we stopped to have lunch at a nearby Noodles and Company. I had originally planned Getting Lunch Out as a specially indulgent treat, in honor of the first midwife appointment and the unusual excitement of having Mark home with us at lunchtime on a weekday. But my growling stomach made it known that I couldn't have waited till home anyway. I was ravenous, drained.

Such a happy occasion and yet so exhausting. I think that happiness, or perhaps changes-in-status-of-happiness, must take something out of you. Or maybe I was burning up energy with apprehension. By the time we got home I needed a nap.

But I feel better, so much better, now that I have heard back -- in a fashion -- from the little, quiet inhabitant. I suppose I am dependent on technology, and information. Why wouldn't I be, at least a little? It is the sea in which I swim.

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