Every time I have an appointment, I get a little jittery and anxious beforehand. I never know what’s going to happen or if there may be bad news. Granted, I recognize nothing I will do will have any control over the outcome of the appointment, but I still get a little nervous anyway. I’m progressively less nervous than I have been since my first prenatal appointment with my OB-GYN at week 10, but the fear of the (negative) unknown still creeps in the background.

Chris and I walked across Central Park to my doctor’s office, where I was immediately checked in and given a little cup to pee in. Then, I was brought in to get my weight and blood pressure measured; luckily this time, my blood pressure was actually normal. They brought me into the sonogram room, where we waited for the NP to come.

She eventually came in with an NP in training, asked a few questions about how I was feeling, and she started my scan. The quality of the imaging here has never been great, but we could see a very rapidly moving outline of a tiny human on the ultrasound screen. The NP let us know that the baby was currently in breech position (that’s okay at 15 weeks… not so much at 35-38 weeks). She measured the baby’s heart beat, which was in range, and also said she was measuring at about 4 inches long, which is also normal for this gestational age. This week, the baby is currently the size of a navel orange — my little orange baby.

Everything was looking good, the NP confirmed, and we’re right on track. All my tests and scans have come back normal to date. The baby was likely setting a record for how active she is, as the NP said that she’s rarely seen the baby so active at this age. She was really using her hands a lot and getting to know how to use them in there!

My active little baby, I thought happily on my walk back home. Hopefully she will be fit and active like her mom. I’m hoping that all the exercise and physical activity I have been doing will be beneficial to her.

Chris and I have been in the midst of deciding what dates and for how long we will go back to San Francisco. We knew that after we both got fully vaccinated that we’d plan a trip back home at some point during the summer. Yet although I do want to go home, especially given how long it’s been since I was last there, my last visit wasn’t particularly happy or calm, and I have a feeling this trip will also be full of angst and stupid annoyances that really do not have to happen.

It shouldn’t be drama-filled to go home, but in my case, it always is. My mother is always extremely paranoid about who knows I am coming and if I have to see them… because inevitably if I see extended relatives, that means SHE and my dad need to see them, and she never enjoys that. She loves to ask about them and gossip about them, but once she has to see them, she dreads it and then has to gossip about all of them after. She also thinks that if we all go out, it inevitably means that everyone is expecting and “using” and “taking advantage of them” to pay whatever dinner bill there is. But it’s not like she ever even gives anyone else a chance to pay; she just secretly pays the bill in the beginning by pretending to go to the bathroom, or instructs my dad to do it since my dad always needs motherly instruction. Then afterwards, she blames me and accuses me of forcing her into the situation and makes herself out to be the victim once again. It’s an exhausting thought and exhausting to even type out, but I unfortunately have to think about this EVERY SINGLE TIME I go home. She’s repeatedly told me over and over again not to tell any relatives I’m coming home. “They don’t care about you,” she always says. One of my mother’s very favorite things to say, other than, “No,” “You know….” (always in an angry tone), and that “I worry…,” is that no one cares about me or her other than our own immediate family; no one else. She repeatedly told me around the time when Ed passed away that if I died, none of my “friends” would care. They’d cry once or twice, and then they’d forget about me as though I never existed. While that may be the case for distant friends, I really am not cynical enough to believe that’s the case with very close friends.

That’s just one of the five million reasons going home gives me angst. This is also why I cannot stay at my parents’ place the entire time I am home if it’s for more than just a few days. Even three to four days now feels like too much, especially if it’s consecutive days. Once upon a time, pre-pandemic, work always gave me a buffer so that I could stay in a work-expensed hotel for part of the time and at home part of the time, but unfortunately now, that’s not really a possibility. Chris asked me why I never stayed with any of my close friends. Well, one of them had a basement home that is filthy that I’d never feel healthy staying in, though she has offered. And to my knowledge and memory, the other one’s never really offered. So that really only leaves me with relying on a hotel.

I did a quick search for hotels in San Francisco, wondering how high the prices would be, and I couldn’t believe it: I could actually book the Marriott Marquis or the Westin St. Francis Hotel for only $169/night! You may not be aware of exactly how insane San Francisco hotel costs can be, but both those hotels are usually, at minimum, $400++/night, and that’s on a GOOD day for booking. It would actually not be shocking to see rates for either of those hotels in the $700-800++ range; during the most insane conference seasons, they can easily be over a thousand dollars a night.

In some way, that seems sad because it means San Francisco is still picking up, but on the other hand, why would I not take advantage of these rates…?!

I looked at my side view in the mirror today, and my stomach definitely looks a little bit bigger and rounder than it did this same time last week. But for a few minutes, I got a little paranoid, wondering if it looks bigger just because I want it to look bigger, and then I wondered if my little baby was even still breathing with a beating heart. I immediately Googled belly growth during pregnancy during the second trimester, and the average result seems to be about 1 centimeter per week. Phew, I thought. That’s actually very tiny, so maybe the “growth” I think I’ve observed in the mirror since last week actually is real. Maybe I should really stop worrying. It’s almost like I’m looking for reasons to worry, and I’m letting my pregnancy anxiety get the best of me.

It’s hard to shake the worry and anxiety given the journey I’ve been on, though. I can’t ever be that confident that anything is going well, even when multiple doctors and sonographers have all assured me that everything is on track, which they have. The last doctor at the hospital who reviewed my ultrasounds at my 12.5 week appointment actually said to me, “You could not be in better shape. Everything is on track!” And the suckiest part about this is that it’s not even like the worry and anxiety ends once the baby is born, assuming it’s healthy. Then, I’ll end up worrying about whether it’s eating enough, gaining enough weight, sleeping enough, pooping enough. Then there’s always sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) to be silently freaking out about during its first year of life.

I don’t technically have a baby to take care of that is external to my body. In that sense, no one is going around calling me a mother. But I definitely feel like I’m already a mom with my thoughts and worries.

Every morning since around the fifth week of pregnancy, I’ve woken up to very sore breasts. The breast soreness as a pregnancy symptom is very, very real; even slightly bumping my breasts into something or getting hugged too hard causes them to hurt. They are sore and growing. Sometimes, I even poke or press against one of them to remind myself that I am, in fact, still pregnant. The anxiety of a potential pregnancy loss never seems to fully dissipate. I have no power over the unknown.

This morning, though, when I woke up, my breasts felt particularly heavy, as though they were full of something. Was it MILK? I thought to myself. It’s crazy to think how quickly your body registers that you are pregnant and then immediately signals to all your other body parts that it has X number of weeks to prepare for the baby’s arrival.

The reason that your breasts get sensitive and tender, even heavy during pregnancy, is that hormones in your body immediately start preparing your breasts for lactation as soon as the HCG hormone is detected. Milk ducts are growing and being stretched as they fill with milk very early in pregnancy.

I told Chris that my breasts felt super heavy when I woke up this morning, and he asked why. I explained the above to him, and he got super confused. “THIS early?” he said, astounded.

Yep, this early. Men clearly have no idea how the female body works to prepare, far far in advance, of a baby’s arrival. The female body prepares, and the female mind is on overdrive. I’ve read that many men don’t fully register that a baby is on the way / has arrived until the baby is literally in their arms.

I was heading out to have dinner with a friend tonight when Chris did a once-over on what I was wearing. “What’s happened in the last week?! You’re popping out now!” He jokingly likes to say that I’m getting fat… which is comical given that I know if I were gaining weight due to eating, it certainly would NOT manifest itself in the same way as a baby bump. When I gain weight from food, it tends to accumulate on my ” love handles,” or waist, and also a little on my arms I’d assume.

I have a few easy pull-over dresses that are more form fitting and that I’ve worn in the last week since it’s been quite hot outside, and they’re just easy to throw on since they are stretchy and one-piece. When I met my friend at the restaurant, I asked her if I looked any different, and she did a once-over and got a little confused and kept looking me over. “Wait, you’re PREGNANT! OMGG!!!” she exclaimed, giving me a hug. She said she felt a little tired from work when she first came out to see me, but after a visit to the bathroom and on the way back, she watched me walking back over and said, “I can’t believe I missed it in the beginning. You are so obviously showing now! You’re so skinny that it really pops out!”

As my belly continues to stick out and grow, it will be more and more comical to watch different people’s reactions. Keep growing, you little lemon baby.

I’m about 13 weeks along in my pregnancy as of this week. I think and say this every week since I found out I was pregnant, but I still can’t believe I’ve made it this far and am just feeling so grateful. As my belly is slowly growing n the last week, I’ve read that the expanding uterus is slowly moving up from my pelvic region into the area where my stomach is, which is why your stomach starts expanding. There are a number of pants (well, any pant that has a zipper!) and skirts I can no longer wear comfortably, and soon enough, there will be shirts I will no longer fit into anymore, either. And while I have done some brief online browsing at maternity clothing, I’m trying to limit myself to not buy too many pieces since maternity wear is for a limited time only, or to buy things that I can wear postpartum and beyond. At the same time, I haven’t actually purchased anything yet because part of me feels scared of “jinxing” the pregnancy. So I thought that for self-assurance, I would wait until after my 15- and 16-week appointments and ultrasounds to purchase anything new for myself.

The risk of miscarriage plummets after week 12-13, but in the back of my mind given the nearly two years we’ve been trying to conceive, plus the last year of going to a fertility specialist, I can never feel so sure or calm about any of this. I just need to keep taking it day by day, and once my clothes officially do not fit anymore, then it will be time to really go shopping.

As the first trimester ends as it’s been noted in every pregnancy guide I’ve read, it’s normal for pregnancy symptoms, such as extreme fatigue, nausea, breast soreness, and bloating to slowly come to an end. For me, while I had only a couple of bouts of nausea, I did have ongoing bloating and pretty extreme fatigue from around weeks 7-10. While it’s great to know that these symptoms would lessen, as I do feel my energy returning to pre-pregnancy levels, it’s also a little bit scary because guides also say that a total disappearance of pregnancy symptoms could mean that you’ve had a miscarriage. See how everything seems to be a double-edged sword while you are pregnant? It doesn’t feel like you can feel “safe” at any time regardless of what happens. My breast soreness still continues, and it’s the most prominent in the morning when I get out of bed. Sometimes when I have moments of anxiety and for whatever reason wonder if I am still pregnant, I press on one of my breasts to see if it still feels sore, and then am slightly relieved when I still notice it hurts or is sore. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s just something I’ve been doing.

I’m still cutting my nails extremely regularly; it’s actually comical how often I need to cut them. Granted, I like my nails shorter than the average woman, particularly because I cook often, so as soon as the whites start showing, I start feeling uncomfortable. But since we were in New Mexico for about five days, i had no access to a nail clipper, and so the nails just went wild! I’m even considering recording how often I cut my nails during my pregnancy journey as a way to document life during these days. The pregnancy hormones make your hair and nails grow much faster. While I’m bad at keeping track of hair growth, maybe my hair stylist will comment on it when I go in for a cut and color in July.

Chris and I went out to view some apartments today, and while walking between one and the other, which was quite a fair distance, I needed to use the bathroom. Well, as he comments, I seemingly always need to use the restroom, but while pregnant, I’ve definitely needed to use it even more often. We passed by a Wagamama restaurant, and he just looked at me with my little bump sticking out of my dress and said, “You should just go in and tell them you’re pregnant and see if they will let you use it. They definitely will. You ARE pregnant! You LOOK pregnant in what you’re wearing, so it’s not like you’re lying!”

So I walked in and the host greeted me, and I said, “Hi, I’m pregnant, and….”

“You need to use the restroom? Go on ahead. Straight back to your left,” he said smiling.

It was hilarious. He must get this question all the time. And here I was, actually taking advantage of being pregnant and needing to use the restroom at a place where I wasn’t actually a patron. Tiny wins.

It was the first 90+ degree F day in New York City today, and we ended up going down to Brooklyn for our usual food crawl and outdoor exploration. Somehow, not only did we cash in on the Malai Ice Cream credit we were given due to the poor service we experienced our first time there last fall, but we even scored a whole dozen of free free-range eggs from Double Yoke egg company. It felt like a very lucky day for us.

One thing I noticed while getting dressed for the day was that my tiny bump was actually showing through my slightly fitted summer dress. I only have a few summer dresses that I would happily wear on a day this hot, and this one… well, it’s either I’ve eaten WAY too much food, or there’s definitely a pregnant belly sticking out. I smiled looking at myself in the mirror. It’s my little baby showing. And she’s only getting bigger from here on out, fingers crossed.

I made my first trip to Lenox Hill Hospital this afternoon with Chris. We went up to the second floor, where the maternal fetal medicine and OB-GYN ultrasound unit was. As Chris commented, it was a pretty dreary experience entering the hospital, from going past security and getting a ‘visitor’ pass to being in the cramped and small waiting area of the ultrasound unit. He was banished from the main waiting area and told to wait on the first floor because of COVID, so I could tell he was already unhappy with the experience here. I had no idea what to expect; when I made the appointment, they just told me that I’d be allowed “one support person.”

When I was called in for my ultrasound, a friendly sonographer named Vera greeted me and showed me into my room, and Chris was called to join. Vera began the ultrasound over my belly, and immediately we could see our little baby on the screen. For the very first time, our little baby was looking… like a real baby. The image of her was so bright and vivid that you could even clearly see her little heart beating like crazy! Her fetal heart rate was 166, which she said was right on track, and she was measuring well for her age, as well. Surprisingly, we could even see 3D images of the baby, of course nestled in fetal position, in some pictures covering her eyes and others exposing them. I can’t quite make out fingers and toes, but you can definitely see little feet and hands at this stage. I looked at the screen in total awe: this is our baby, I thought, our little pookie-kin, our tiny survivor. When Vera changed the imaging to 2D, we could even see the baby’s little feet kicking like crazy almost nonstop! Because of this, Vera called her “the little dancer.” Because she is still so small, the size of a lime this week, I still can’t feel her, but I was told I should be able to feel fetal movement around 17-22 weeks.

I felt so lucky lying there on the exam table, having this cold gel rubbed all over for this sonogram. I kept looking over the sonogram images that Vera printed for us in awe as I waited for the doctor to go over all the results and next steps with me. I still can’t believe I’ve made it this far. I feel so grateful, and while I still have a little worry over this not lasting, I feel more happy and content with this than before. Soon, fingers crossed, I’ll be able to say farewell to the first trimester and try to enjoy the next phase, the second trimester, and watch the evolution of my body to accommodate my growing little one.