Hubby and I have always balanced each other out. When he freaks, I can stay perfectly calm and vice versa.
Like the time our Monkey cat ate a needle I had lost in the carpet when making tutus and we had to rush her to the pet ER at 9 PM and he was losing it hysterical and I kept calm and got us all there safe (unfortunately our speedy and calm arrival was pointless since they waited almost two hours to x-ray her and by that point the needle had descended into her intestines and she required full surgery versus the scope they could have done if it was in her stomach).
Or when I was pregnant with Honeybun and they found Choroid plexus cysts in her brain and kept pushing an amneiocentesis and hubby wanted to do it and I insisted nothing was wrong and refused (I was right).
Or when Honeybun had her seizure and I held her in my arms while she shook and he cried hysterically on the phone with 911.
But it goes the other way, too. When I start to freak out about something completely ridiculous he can tell me I’m being stupid (even when I try my best to rile him up alongside me!)
And recently we had one of those moments, though I never told hubby I was secretly freaking out. At my last prenatal appointment with my midwife, she told us that the ultrasound report showed the tech couldn’t see the kidneys.
The ‘k’ word has become a scary one in our family recently. Hubby’s Grammy just passed from kidney problems and his dad is awaiting a transplant this summer. My midwife assured us it was just probably that the baby was positioned poorly and gave us the choice of a rescan or just watching and waiting for other signs.
I saw a bit of worry on hubby’s face and said “we can go back in for the scan if you want the reassurance.” He shook his head and I said “but you know everything is fine, right?” And completely out of character he said “I know.”
What he didn’t know, though, is that I spoke those words before I had processed the whole thing. And I was up all night thinking and worrying about it.
Fetal kidney problems often cause excess fluid. And I’ve measured a week to a week and a half big this entire pregnancy which has NEVER happened to me before, even during my big boy pregnancy last time. And I’ve also struggled with my weight gain this time, despite eating as I always have and staying active with the move.
I tried not to Google too much about it because I didn’t want to get too much in my head and I tried not to think about it. But all the pieces were there and somehow by hubby not being worried, it was almost like giving me permission to freak out (though I never told him because I didn’t want him to change his mind!)
I worried about what it would all mean not just for the baby but our family. I’d need to find a neonatologist near our new home, which is a brand new area where we know no one within a half hour (the distance to our old/current home!). I worrried if I would still be able to have a homebirth. I worried about a preterm delievery. I worried about the baby needing surgery or being unviable. Every possibility flooded my head and took over my thoughts every chance I let it.
We went in for the ultrasound follow-up yesterday morning and hubby was right, kidneys are fine. Not only that but my “low-lying” placenta (which was borderline last check) has moved up more and baby is already head down which both I and the midwife had already thought.
And, as It turns out, we are on track to another perfectly healthy baby and hopefully another uneventful homebirth in our new home. Now to just get everything ready in our new home before s/he arrives in 15 +/- short weeks! (and I can only blame myself for any excessive weight gain…)
photo by Lili Marie Photography
