Pregnancy update

• I'm still pregnant. 17 weeks now. I had a midwife appointment the other day, and there is still a heartbeat present. I used to scoff at people who bought home doppler ultrasounds. I know the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine is not a big fan of ultrasounds for other than indicated medical reasons, and I thought that people who disregarded such advice for their own reassurance were foolhardy at worst, merely silly at best. I'm not running out to buy a Doppler, but I now have much more sympathy for the people who do. Four weeks is a long time to wait between live-fetus checks. Especially when one is a big research-slut, aware of many of the things that can go wrong in a pregnancy at any point. But next week is the screening ultrasound, and fairly soon I expect to start feeling fetal movement on a regular basis. So this four weeks might just be the longest period I've had to go not being quite sure if there's a real live fetus in there.
• I'm not showing. I bought my first baby item last week: a Maya Wrap sling. I found it on craigslist. Plain black, my size (but not A.'s), with instructional DVD, and within short biking distance. Perfect. The couple I bought it from have a six-week old daughter who hates the sling. The father said to me "I hope... whoever you're buying this for... enjoys it!" So I guess, even when my behaviour indicates I could be pregnant, I don't look it. The midwife also mentioned me not showing. I told her A. can tell, when I'm naked. Apparently having one's husband think one looks pregnant while naked does not officially count as "showing."
• I have a definite case of white coat syndrome. Except that it's not doctors (or midwives) who necessarily freak me out. It's receptionists and nurses. I've always had a pretty significant social anxiety disorder (yes, professionally diagnosed), and it tends to be worse with "counter people" (retail workers, receptionists) and low-level authorities like nurses. I breathe deeply in the elevator while A. pats my arm, check in with the receptionists (whom I hate, for a combination of rational and irrational reasons), fiddle clumsily with the label for the urine sample I brought along, try to calm myself while flipping through a magazine in the waiting room, quickly get called by a nurse (since my midwife seems to do her appointments on time, and I refuse to show up any time either than exactly 5 minutes before my appointment), follow the (feared, but not hated) nurse into the exam room, and immediately get my blood pressure taken. High, of course. This time I got the midwife to take it at the end of the exam as well, at which point it was comfortably in the normal range. I'm worried that they'll want to induce me later for PIH, which will really just be social anxiety. Maybe I can convince them to let me take my own readings over 24 hours before they make any decisions.
• I'm gaining weight like crazy. It worries me. If I continue gaining at this rate, I will gain 50 lbs over the course of the pregnancy.
• We asked the midwife if she knew any Bradley instructors. She mentioned a couple of names, that A. had already found in his research. She also said that she liked them because they didn't make their clients "hostile." She described the "hostility" as "vestigial." A. was impressed with her choice of vocabulary. I was slightly disturbed by her dismissal of the consumer-education portion of the classes. It seems she measures an instructor by their tendency to have complacent students. I guess I shouldn't expect any differently, since she would be on the receiving end of the "hostility." I think she thinks it's no longer needed since she and her colleagues no longer routinely shave their patients, give enemas, separate the parents, etc. But I'm still worried about other decisions: to not have an IV, to eat and drink, to delay cord cutting, and to have the baby never ever leave the room.
  
• A. finds me extra-sexy when I'm pregnant. He told me he's even finding himself attracted to other pregnant women, which hasn't been a factor for him before. I'm enjoying the attention, since I have the typical worries about how pregnancy is changing my body.
  
• I still haven't told my boss I'm pregnant, and only one labmate knows. I figure the boss should be first. She's been out of town for a few weeks. I may have to tell her at a workshop we have out-of-town in about a week. I'm nervous. She does not like children. She's always felt, I think, that I've been one of the few people she can confide in about her dislike of children, and her annoyance when events she has to attend turn out to be child-centred. On the other hand, I know she strongly identifies as a feminist, and I don't think she's going to try to make my life hell for choosing motherhood. She knows that it's much easier for men to choose fatherhood at this stage (or any) in their careers, and I know that her sense of fairness will win out in the end.