Christmas Comes Early

The results are in.

And they are good. Very very very very good.

(Here I squeal. And I'm not a squealer, not really. But if ever one was going to squeal in one's life, I think it would be now.)

I want to say that I knew it, I knew it all along. I felt it. I sensed it. Mother's instinct, don't you know? But I didn't. I needed a call from my doctor's office yesterday to confirm, as I clutched my cell phone breathlessly, that yes, this baby girl is healthy; that the wretched toxoplasmosis a couple of stray kittens bestowed upon me twenty weeks ago had never crossed the placenta; that all signs point to carry on, mama.

"The test is negative," said the voice. I didn't even ask another question. I just sobbed, "thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you, thank you," over and over again.

I hung up, clutched the phone to my chest for a brief moment, and exhaled the longest, most cathartic breath perhaps in my life.

I'm excited to get on with the business of being pregnant. To stop the self torment about what I might have done to deserve this hell, and get on with the complaining about the spreading ass, and the enormoboobs, and the sciatica and the God-awful maternity wardrobe. To freak out about college funds and childcare. To refuse to budge in the seemingly unresolvable battle over baby names that has already begun. To wring my hands about loving the second when the first has already staked her claim over the entirety of my heart.

In other words, I look forward to feeling like a regular old hormonal, bitchy, cynical, whiny, tired, and occasionally freaking-the-hell-out pregnant woman.

And while you will no doubt find me here in the coming weeks, complaining about each and every one of these things as if none of this heinousness ever hung over my head, I will never lose sight of just how lucky I am to be able to do so.

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Overwhelm: 1. To give too much of a thing (to someone); inundate 2. Have a strong emotional effect on

I have to add, once again, thank you. I know it seems so cliche and mommybloggy and just a little....ick to keep thanking online friends and readers and friends I didn't even know I had as readers for the overwhelming (see above) support and good wishes. But tough. I have to believe that the collective goodwill had some small or not so small part in this all and for that I will be forever indebted.

In fact we'd name the baby after all of you if we could. Well, at least I would. Nate would nixe every one of them unless he came up with it himself.