Friday, August 14, 2009

Gestational logorrhea: week 13

The cat's out of the bag (though the fetus is not, by a long shot). It felt great to come clean about my status, and I stopped short of taking out a full page ad in the New York Times to announce it. I finally got the call back from the midwives I was waiting for, yesterday evening, giving me the results of my screening. As things stand now, the odds of the baby having Down's syndrome are 1 in 620 (better than Jonah's odds were at the same stage) and 1 in 10,000 for another defect called Trisomy 18. I have no further worries, and feel relieved to be able to inhabit my condition fully and without reservation.

We told Jonah the news last night. It was shortly before bedtime, and he was a bit sleepy, reading a book at the table while we ate our dinner. He listened, then wandered off to play, and came back after a time to say, "It gonna come out?" I assured him that yes, the baby would come out, but not until the winter. Today he stared and grinned at babies we saw at the botanical garden, and said "hi, baby!" to my belly when I reminded him the baby was there. If only it could always be this goddamn sweet. (I guess there's no reason it can't be... eventually.)

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