Twenty-Eight

One of my work friends called Sweet Dub last night to discuss some super secret thing they are doing at my first baby shower* in a couple of weeks. (Don’t tell anyone, but I am fairly certain they are buying me a 3-bedroom 2.5-bath house in an area with great schools! And a tankless water heater! Despite the fact that they all work in the non-profit sector and can barely buy themselves a sandwich! So generous!) This sent my (generally fairly low-key) husband into a bit of a tailspin.

“How much longer do we have until viability?” he asked me later in the evening, gesturing (I assume) toward the gigantic orb attached to the front of my body. Fetal Blah thrummed a little ditty across my left side and then stomped down on my bladder.

“Well, technically, she’s viable now, although she’d be premature and would probably have to stay in the hospital for a while—“ I said, sitting down under my offspring’s assault.

“No, no,” he said impatiently. “Like last time, when you were on bedrest, they were just trying to get you to a certain point—“

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I guess thirty-seven, thirty-eight weeks? So if you go by that, about ten weeks. But I don’t think** she’s coming early.”

“Shit,” said Sweet Dub, melting into the couch. “We really need to get it together. Where are we going to put this baby?”

So yeah, in a little bit of a panic over here. Oh, and as yet, no solid agreement on a name. Sweet Dub has one picked out that he feels strongly about, and I am not so crazy about it. It is a family name, which is why he is pushing it, but for whatever reason I am just not feeling it. I’ve tried calling Fetal Blah that name and I get no response from her whatsoever. From this we can draw any number of conclusions: (1) she doesn’t like the name; (2) whatever the amnio said, she is quite possibly a boy; (3) she can tell I am not crazy about it; (4) she is coincidentally asleep every single time we use the name; (5) the name makes her limp with disgust; (6) she really doesn’t give a flip about it; and/or (7) by this point, you don’t give a damn either.

This is where we are, folks.

* I say “first” baby shower because my dear friend Splooey is hosting a second baby shower next month. You see how lucky I am?

** Yeah, I know. I don’t understand why we think we mere mortals have any control over it either. I think even writing that down makes the gods laugh. Like, snorting milk through the nose, getting hiccups afterward kind of laughing. Well, I aim to entertain!