Enter Sluggo

So I have been referring to this swelling in my tummy as Sluggo. My mom referred to my most recent nephew as “pea” when he was in utero, and it was so gross, because in case you have not noticed, PEA RHYMES WITH PEE. I proactively and spontaneously started calling him Sluggo when I saw him on the 7-week sonogram (I am VERY proactive) and he was shaped kinda like a lima bean, which is kinda like a slug… okay, it was when iVillage sent my first “what your baby looks like at whatever week” email, with the little gentle colored-pencil drawing, and I was like, “Damn, that looks like… that looks like a slug.”

Anyway, I still want to catch up on some of the stuff from the past 9 weeks I don’t want to forget. Once I realized I was pg, I got overly excited, and then, when I went in for the blood tests, I got ridiculously scared. They measured my HCG levels – a pregnancy hormone. The number is supposed to double every 2 days. Mine barely did, so they made me do a third one. That one also seemed hinky, but only slightly so. The numbers were:

4/25 – 209
4/28 – 490
4/30 – 808

So basically Doctor Jovial (an RE, not an OB-GYN – essentially, the guy who knocks me up and then releases me to the loving arms of the doctor who’ll deliver Sluggo, G-dwilling) threw up his hands and said, “Look, everything seems fine. If it’s not, you’ll know soon enough.”

Not much of a bedside manner, but I appreciated the honesty.

This was one of many times I realized the internet is not my friend. I got hit with a crap-ton of numbers: in 85% of healthy pregnancies, the number doubles faster. 15% double more slowly. So I had a 15% chance of having a healthy pregnancy? “Your chances are better than that,” says my OB-GYN. “How much better?” “I don’t have a number for you. They’re better.”

I ate a fig newton.

On 5/8, I had an ultrasound to confirm Sluggo not wandering around like a zygotical Moses in the desert of my small intestine. Nope! He was safely inside my uterus, with a little yolk sac strapped to his back and a wee bag of placenta. Actually, all I could see was the yolk sac and the placenta. There was a little hyphen in the middle that was probably him, but he didn’t have a heartbeat yet, so who knew. “You could just have a yolk-sac with nothing in it!” my RE exclaimed, cheerfully, as he shoved the ginormous dildo-camera further up my hoo-hoo. Faantastic.

Finally, on 5/15, I saw a heartbeat. 130 beats per minute, just as S had cautioned me to look for (she’d had a heartbeat of 80 beats per minute, and that ended in – you know.) My heart was a huge, slow click; his was a quick swishing hummingbird. I cried my eyes out.

The third ultrasound was 5/30. This time, Sluggo had armbuds and legbuds and looked like a little teddybear. There was a weird noise in there, like purring, so I’m hoping he’s actually a kitten. Heartrate was up to 165.8. “He’s already got high blood pressure!” his daddy cheered. He’s supercute. But I think he might be a monster. “Look at that, nice and big, just like he should be at 10 weeks.” Except he was only 8 weeks. Did I mention his daddy is 6’4”? Oy vey, I have GOT to start smoking.