Baby Update

It’s Saturday morning and I’ll be barricaded in my office all weekend trying to get my revisions done. I had all week, and I did work on Zayed’s story (the third book of my Harlequin Desert Kings trilogy) when I could, but between doctors appointments and life stuff, I just didn’t get as much done on the writing front as I expected. Being pregnant has been a lot more work than I remembered! Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s just a fuzzy memory, but I don’t remember being slowed this much by pregnancy in the past. I don’t remember struggling with my body this much.

With this pregnancy I subscribed to several mom and pregnancy magazines. In fact, I subscribed over a year ago when we were getting ready for our first round of IVF and all spring and summer I poured over the maternity fashions, studied all the new looks and discovered that today’s modern pregnant woman isn’t supposed to wear the tent dresses and loose tops, but snug knit pieces that hug the body and highlights the wonderful curves of pregnancy. I loved the idea. I couldn’t wait to wear the tops and clothes I’d ordered, some rather expensive, some from as far away as London. I’m six months along now and definitely with belly and boobs and those snug knit tops should be celebrating my shape.  Unfortunately, I forgot that along with belly and boobs I also get butt.

And chunky thighs.

And thick arms.

The only thing all the wonderful snug knit maternity clothes do is proclaim me round, and quite possibly, fat.

I’m not complaining, at least not a lot, because something wonderful happened this week and its taken me five days to process the news and share it: the baby looks great.

You see, I haven’t been getting lots of consistent wonderful updates at the ultrasounds. In fact, at my week 20 ultrasound they gave Surfer Ty and me the news that the baby might have some serious problems. The baby–a boy, and yes, I’m thrilled to be having another boy, I just love, love, love my boys–was very very small and had a number of issues that indicated possibly serious life problems. Ty and I were shocked and worried and while he didn’t talk about it much, we both did lots of quiet thinking, as we adjusted the way we imagined our life to be after baby was born. Maybe baby wouldn’t be a little surf baby.  Maybe baby would need special education. Maybe baby would be a special needs child. I prayed, and resolved  to love this wonderful beautiful boy no matter what issues he faces because he’s the baby we’ve been waiting for.

The doctor did give me some suggestions to try to help the baby along. He said I need to up my protein as much as I could, including downing one or two protein shakes a day, to add baby aspirin to my daily diet, to up my folic acid intake, and to rest when I could. I did all that, as well as asked close friends to pray and keep the baby in their thoughts.

A month later, at this week’s ultrasound, we got really great news. Baby Mac, yep, his name’s going to be Mac, had doubled his weight and size, and all the problems they saw a month ago appeared to have been resolved. He’s so active lately I knew he had to be healthy. He’s a bundle of energy and always moving and kicking and thumping and hiccuping. It’s just amazing that after a month of worry and more, to know that Mac now will have a chance to start life as a healthy baby boy.

But still, keep baby Mac in your thoughts and prayers. He’s a little fighter, but I’m not leaving anything to chance. I want this baby to know he’s dearly loved and very wanted and we can’t wait to meet him and welcome him to the family.

To celebrate Mac’s good news, I’m doing a weekend contest with the prize being a signed copy of your choice of one of my books (Frog Prince, Flirting with Forty, Odd Mom Out, or Mrs Perfect), a cool Starbucks mug, a  Starbucks drink card, plus lots of other fun JP goodies. The contest will close Sunday night midnight and I’ll post the winner’s name Monday morning. To be entered, all you have to do is post a comment this weekend, and that’s it. You can tell me what you’re doing this weekend, how your week went, or your plans for next week. Just talk to me and you’re in!