Your placenta ruined my Christmas

I don't really like to complain...the universe being as generous and forthcoming with blessings as it has been and all but yesterday was really very disappointing.

We drove all the way to Vegas, super excited and sure that even if we weren't able to determine the gender of the baby we'd at least get a good solid photo of him or her; something to post here and coo at. Something to send to the many friends and family who literally cover the four corners of the earth. But it was not meant to be. When we arrived at the midwife's office she was in a back room "holding a placenta" according to her assistant who then explained that another woman had just given birth to a baby girl and that she herself, a very sweet well-trained doula with no idea how to work the ultrasound machine or sonogram printer, would handle our prenatal appointment.

Needless to say we did not find out the sex of our little swallowed basketball nor did we get even the grainiest squelch of an image to take home with us. She could hardly find the baby and when she finally did she couldn't find the photo paper to load into the empty machine. I practically cried right there on the table with blue goo all over my stomach and nothing to show for it. I'd built the possibility of that day up for so many weeks that it was inevitable I suppose. I admittedly but only briefly considered pulling a Carlito's Way to try to get the midwife in the room but held my tears and my tongue and went shopping instead; wanting to at least take advantage of our big-city locae to get some clothes for this alien body I'm now housed in. This body that can no longer fit into the first batch of baby-body clothes I purchased so many months ago. But even retail therapy, a darling doting husband, and a delicious Japanese lunch could not assuage my grief and we drove home feeling like little kids who'd been cheated out of a trip to the beach or toy store. Worse, still - kids who had been taken to the toy store fully expecting they'd leave with something in hand only to be told at the door there was someone else's placenta in the way and they would have to come back another time.

We arrived home so late and so thoroughly depressed that I threw myself into bed, ready for that day to be good and finished so I could start a new and better one. While waiting for Hamid I sat there in the dark feeling my stomach as has become my habit - this great taut protrusion where once there was a virtually concave space...and BAM I felt a small but quite strong push from inside my abdomen, right near where my hand was resting. It was unmistakeable - the baby had kicked me for the first time. Again, BAM! Down and to the left - what I can only assume was a foot danced into my other hand. Those small movements over the course of maybe ten seconds changed the entire past 24 hours from a drudge into one of the most ecstatic days of my life thus far...talk about a silver lining.