Eight little fingers and two opposable thumbs

Isn't it great? Today I'm not excited because I was assigned a big difficult project, or because my fellow engineers pretended to do what I asked them for. Today is a great day because the results of my analysis have arrived and I don't have HIV, nor syphilis, and, even more importantly, my fetus has four fingers and a nice opposable thumb in each hand.

I feel quite proud of being able to appreciate these little magic details. I am not living a simple life. I generally need technological and cultural complex aids for entertainment; Wii and Woody Allen, booze, thai food and overpriced shoes. I don't feel too ashamed when I say that I'm not really able to recognize the beauty of a green field or a stream of water. I'm a city girl. If I got lost in the forest, I would probably die. Luckily, it is rather unlikely that I will get enough close to the forest to get lost.

But those ten seconds... counting together with the unpleasant Czech lady in charge of the sono machine. One, two... and finally ten! oh, yes! Ten fingers which moved together with the little hand as the unpleasant lady poke the fetus with the sono device. Isn't it a miracle?

Pregnancy Symptoms: Looks like the fetus stopped messing with my stomach.
Mother instinct: Three. I was a bit upset with the unpleasant lady poking my fetus. Was it instinct when I wanted to slap her? Or was just her being a stupid and really unpleasant cow?

The grandma

Since I got pregnant my mother is calling me every second day to tell me some kind of story from her pregnancy, or my aunt's pregnancies, or my grandmas', or anybody else, friends, neighbors, their daughters, acquaintances and mascots.

In general I find it cute and dear when my mother tells me that she was craving for ice-cream in December, asks me if I'm already using cream against stretch marks, and announces very proudly that I'm so healthy because I took milk for seven months (and ruined my mother's breasts, by the way) and because she didn't take even an aspirin while she was pregnant.

Then, there is the slightly disturbing stuff that I didn't know before, like the fact that with my sister her belly was so big that she had to hold it with special underwear so it would't bounce around. Can it bounce around? Really? Gross.

And finally, there is the stuff that I definitely didn't want to know, for example, that my mother chose to be drugged with anesthesia when she gave birth to me. While I understand that epidural was maybe not usual at the time, and my mom and I share the opinion that God gave us opium for a reason... drugged? Really? Lucky me she didn't take even an aspirin during pregnancy...

Pregnancy Symptoms: Getting fat. Enormous boobs which Martin seems to find sexy despite terrible new giant bra.
Mother instinct: Nope, not yet. Not having aspirins, though. Feel proud. Hope fetus appreciate

And now a fetus

I was thinking of celebrating it in some way when our embryo would turn into a fetus, but as usual, things happened faster than we thought. Apparently, our embryo has turned into a fetus. Last week. And its future parents were totally unaware. For this, and for the shushi nights in Moscow, I'm pretty sure we will be blamed in the future.

Didn't we learn in school that the embryo turns into fetus after the third month? Dates doesn't seem to make any sense once you get into the "magic" pregnancy world. Either miracles are measured by a time scale that is not of this world, or the whole thing is evilly design in purpose to make things look way faster than they are. It is crazy, in the pregnancy world, the moment you take your pants off, you are already two weeks pregnant.

I learned this strange fact in the first visit to the doctor, when he told me I was seven weeks pregnant. Seven weeks?? The future father and I looked at each other, remembering two months of party nights, weddings, apple tobacco and Spanish wine. But... it is impossible. We are pretty sure when we ordered the child, and, believe me, seven weeks ago, it was not even in stock.

It starts counting from the last period, the doctor explained, so the future father and I looked each other again. Did you learn that in your school? and then, isn't that stupid? But, hey, pregnancy is not stupid, it is a miracle. Probably the child was already in the magic accounting books of the magic monkey that delivers the babies.

Pregnancy Symptons: No ginger, no homeopathy. Spanish food is the answer to morning sickness.
Mother instinct: Zero. Annoying baby in restaurant. At least fetuses are not so annoying

It moves!!

I have seen before these ultrasound souvenirs from other pregnant ladies. Generally I would have problems even to recognize that white bean over dark background as "the baby", leave alone share the mum's-to-be excitement over the size of the embryo.

This feeling didn't really changed after my very first ultrasound. There was a blurry white thing in the middle of my uterus and a blinking spot, supposedly the heart, that made the father-to-be smile like an idiot. I was mainly relieved. It's good to know the embryo has a heart. It's good to know there is an embryo inside after all and these hormone kicks I'm experiencing is not due to some bizarre illness.

Anyway, on Friday I had my second ultrasound. The white bean had expanded to what it appeared most of my uterus, and it looked shinny and blurry as usual. And then the doctor said "he is sleeping" and I was shocked. Does it sleep? How do you know it sleeps? It seems too small and undefined to sleep. And then the doctor said "no, he's moving". And she turned the screen and I saw it too. It moved! and I have to say, yes, I was touched. And I smiled like an idiot.

Pregnancy Symptons: There should be gone already!! Why I still feel like there is a parasite stealing my energy?
Mother instinct: 2. Because I have been showing around the picture of the white, four centimeters bean

Imagining disasters

Pregnancy is not the ideal stage for slightly hypochondriac people. Any book, web page, friend or colleague will enumerate a number of possible scenarios where your baby is born deformed, half dead or worse because you had a sandwich of parma ham, a hot bath, too much or too little tuna.

All that would still be ok, but hypochondriac people stretch it a little bit further. Creative hypochondriac people can stretch it way further. There is plenty of space for that.

We have toxoplasmosis in the parma ham and listeria in the home made desserts. There could be mercury in your tuna salad and too little fish will make your baby stupid, so you may want to stick to salmon, unless is raw salmon, or has mayonnaise, or looks suspicious for some other random reason. Because this is only about the known bacterias. What happen with the unknown? What happen with the army of imaginary parasites that are ready to attack your vulnerable pregnant body? Oh, yes, I can imagine all those uncatalogued viruses walking past the antibodies, who are too busy doing nothing in order not to harm the single parasite you would like to keep inside you.

One could stick to buying and cooking all her meals, but this is hardly a solution for Martin and I. Our cooking is probably as dangerous as preparing yourself a tea with the bottom of a McDonalds fryer and some herbs from the New Age store.

It is great. Now every time I sneeze I panic. And since I'm pregnant I sneeze a lot. Which could be caused by the extra blood running through my nose, or by a virus I got in a shushi dinner in Moscow, which could cause my baby to be born with a finger more or less. I already feel like a terrible mother.

Pregnancy Symptons: Needed to eat calamari in the way to Moravia. Not any calamari. I mean fresh and fried, with ali-oli and Spanish bread around. Boyfriend doesn't take me seriously
Mother instinct: 2. Because transferring my paranoia to the embryo means I care