13 weeks, 5 days.

9th October, 2023 13w5d

Yesterday, it finally got to me and I cried.

Not the joy of child rearing, not the utter profundity of what we are undertaking, but instead, the absolute slog of a marathon that my body is undertaking.

I have not felt like myself for almost 4 months. I didn’t know the impact that would have, but impact, it sure does.

The nausea may have passed (mostly, unless I overeat), and I may be able to make it through most days without a nap now, but there are new symptoms that have caught my already depleted soul off guard.

I woke early to walk the dog and give my beautiful husband the only sleep-in that he gets all week (try as we might, our dog can not and will not sleep past 7am).

I walked him. It was fine. Until I was halfway home. Then, suddenly, a dawning realisation - I was fucking exhausted. I had zero resilience. I was tired as fuck from a short suburban dog walk. My hip hurt. My legs ached. The muscles down my right side glute were stiff and painful. I knew I’d make it home, but I also knew that I would have to collapse once I did. As predicted, that’s what happened. I lay on the bed, barely an hour into my day and cried because I was already exhausted and that felt fucking ridiculous. I wasn’t upset that I still felt shit; I was upset that I was struggling to cop it with grace and dignity, like thousands of millions of women before me.

I found out recently that my great, great grandmother was one of 19 children, all to the same mother. My 3-times-great-grandmother had 17 pregnancies (2 sets of twins!). I did the basic maths last night and figured out that she was pregnant for almost 13 years of her life. I have been pregnant for just over 13 weeks, and I am struggling with how endless it feels. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know why she did it - I think after the 10th child I would tell my husband to fuck right off if he tried to touch me again. But since my existence depends on it, I suppose I must thank her for what must have been a mighty, endless sacrifice of her body. Every single one of her children lived to adulthood. I definitely thank her for those genetics.

Anyway, let’s focus more on the positives.

Our NIPTs test came back showing low risk for any genetic conditions (that they screen for), and significantly, our little baby’s sex. We’re having a girl! We’re having a little tiny daughter. At the moment, she is all of 7.5cm in length, so truly tiny. But she’ll grow and join us and be part of our family, and be our daughter. Incredible.

My paternal Grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago. This is sad, of course, but he lived a good long life of 87 years and was married to my Nan for 63 of them, so I believe he was content enough to go. It meant that I had to fly up to NSW to be with my family on short notice, and the NIPTs test came back when I was away from Lewis. I let it sit in my email inbox, unopened, for about 48 hours. A few friends and family who knew that I had the result but hadn’t looked were amazed that I was able to resist the temptation of a sneak peak, but I truly felt no desire to find out alone. I wanted to share the moment with Lewis more than I wanted to know the sex of the tiny humanoid I’m carrying. My Mum suggested that Lew & I Facetime her and my brother as we opened the email together, but I (probably a little rudely) shut that down very quickly. Lewis wasn’t there when I found out I was pregnant, this was a moment that needed to be shared, just the two of us. When he flew up to NSW to be with me and attend the funeral, Lew & I opened the email together before we’d even left the airport. We hugged in this random Ballina carpark as we marvelled at the tacky pink cartoon announcing “IT’S A GIRL!” that the nurse had sent.

I knew she was a girl all along. I don’t know if it was instinct or expectation, but I wasn’t surprised at all to find out that she is a she (or at least, we will treat her as such unless and until she tells us otherwise). Getting the test back was validating; I was right! Maybe I have maternal instincts? Maybe I have some sort of connection to this baby already? Maybe I had a 50/50 chance of getting it right and lucked out? Who knows! But I’ll always be able to smugly say that I knew she was a girl before it was confirmed.

It also makes naming her a hell of a lot easier (boy names are so much harder!).

On top of knowing her sex, we also got to see her in more depth through our 13 week nuchal scan.

We’ve had an abnormal amount of scans so far - I got to see her when she was just a dot, confirmed to be growing in the right spot, my uterus.

We got to see her as a weird little tadpole with a yolk sac, her heart visibly beating through her tiny not-quite-body to confirm how far along the pregnancy was.

We got to see her again when we got our NIPTs test, just a quick little scan to check for a heartbeat and see her growth (distinctly more human shaped).

But this time, at 13 weeks, she looked like a baby. Properly, a tiny, moving baby. Her heartbeat is strong, her organs are growing in the right places and everything is progressing and it should, which is fantastic, but what has really stayed with me since that scan is that she moved. She arched her back, she sucked her thumb (see below!), and she kept turning her back on the ultrasound wand when they were trying to measure her (hilarious, good for her, no woman likes to be perceived).

The first movement I exclaimed “WAS THAT HER?!” because I didn’t want to get excited in case it was just a shift of the ultrasound wand giving the illusion of movement, but to prove her autonomy, she moved again. She also hid her legs underneath herself so effectively and refused to be jiggled into position to the point that I had to get another internal ultrasound to check that her leg bones were growing correctly (thanks, bub, always a pleasure).

I’ve never seen Lewis more speechless than during and after this scan. All he could manage was “wow” and “that was the most wild thing I have ever seen”.

The scan we’d gotten at 11 weeks had prompted him to suddenly be more conscious of my eating habits. Overnight, he had concerns that I wasn’t eating enough veggies or, god forbid, fish. No matter how much I gag when he mentions fish for dinner, he keeps bringing it up. He didn’t care for 11 weeks, but seeing her little human-like shape, it was all a bit more real for him, and she needed Omega.

I am looking forward to seeing how this scan manifests in his mind and actions. It must be so strange for the father or non-birthing parent. They know this is happening, but they have no symptoms, no constant reminder, they don’t have to grapple with their body being taken over; their days continue much as they did previously. These are the moments that the changes become tangible, or at the very least, visible.

After a rest yesterday, at my request we went along to Baby Bunting. I just wanted to look and touch and start to get my head around the essentials. It’s easy to get bogged down in things we “need”, and I keep reminding myself that all we really need are: some clothes, somewhere safe for her to sleep, a car seat, and a bit of breastfeeding preparation. Anything else can come later. Most things marketed for parents and babies are consumerist lies. The most important thing is that babies are loved, clothed, fed and safe. Regardless, there are some things we’ll need.

I thought Lewis might get bored of wandering around, touching various baby things, marvelling at the sheer amount of choices, rolling prams back and forth trying to feel the difference between them, but he was into it. When I mentioned that we’d also probably need a dryer because the baby will be born on the cusp of winter and clothes take 6 days to dry in Victorian winter, suddenly he was all “we’re close to the Good Guys, wanna go look at dryers?”. Not to buy, just to look, get our heads around things, mentally prepare. Absolutely, my love. You get it. You get me. We’re such a good fucking team.

By far the biggest relief to come of getting the 13 week scan is that we can now, finally, tell the world that we’re having a baby. I haven’t enjoyed keeping the secret, especially not when I felt like shit and had to lie, which is very outside my nature. I never really lied - I don’t think anyone ever directly asked “are you pregnant?” and I replied “no”, but there was a lot of “are you okay?” and the partial truth of “I’m just really tired”, or the even more egregious, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me”. I knew. I was just too scared to say.

Thankfully (and I suppose, predictably) everyone is as stoked for us as we are for ourselves. I was a little nervous about telling Lewis’ beloved Nan that she was going to be a great Nan, but she might be happier for us than anyone else. She really is a Great Nan (ba dum tsshhh). There are a couple of people I felt a bit weird about finding out. I thought they might think I’m less cool, or at least less relatable than I was before. Which might be true. I am entering a phase of life and identity that some of my friends either don’t want to or won't be able to ever join me in, which is fine. It also kind of sucks. This shift in identity and friendship and place-in-the-world is going to be a real ride, I can already sense it. The marathon wont even end when the pregnancy is over. Life is now a marathon.