Forever Paisley

When Brittany and Phil invited us to capture their matrimonial celebration on Cape Cod, we decided to tag on a few days to explore the East Coast. Plus it just so happened to be our two year wedding anniversary that weekend. Seemed like a great excuse to splurge on one last vacation as non-parents and eat all the lobster.

It was going to be great.

At least that’s what I thought until our layover in Chicago. On the tarmac we got a call from our doctor informing us that there was a scare with our twenty-week ultrasound and that we’d need to come in for a follow up. “This will end up being nothing”, she said. I wanted to believe her, but Google wasn’t as reassuring. When I hung up the phone Dan and I consulted and agreed that we felt 90% confident and 10% terrified about the news.

When we landed in Boston what I forgot to tell my partner in crime was that at 30,000 feet my feelings had changed. As we sought out to explore a new city together I was trying so hard to be in the moment, but really I was 90% terrified and 10% confident. Shit finally hit the fan at the Museum of Fine Arts. While perusing the ancient artifacts in the African galleries, Dan, still 90% confident, had picked up on my disinterest. “Is there a different gallery you’d rather start at?”, he asked. At which point I broke into tears and ran to the nearest bathroom to sit with my head between my hands.

Walking down the street, whilst touring historical landmarks, and at {insanely expensive} restaurants … this behavior continued. My mind was in a million places and I just could not pull it together. For the sake of us. For the sake of our baby. For the sake of anything. Things continued to escalate until Cape Cod where the tears turned into a full blown meltdown. There, in a very non-eloquent fashion I finally admitted to Dan that I wasn’t just scared about the baby. I was terrified that if we were presented with the worst case scenario that maybe, possibly we wouldn’t be strong enough to get through it together {sniffle}.

Ah ha.

When I finally gave him the information that he needed to console me our trip began to turn around. I was still scared, of course, but started to meet him halfway. Within 24-hours I found myself riding behind him on a tandem bike, trusting his ability to steer me through yet another unfamiliar place. A place that also happened to come with endless bowls of oh-so-comforting clam chowder. It was going to be okay.

Update: Everything did end up okay. Two days after returning from the East Coast I had a follow up ultrasound which ruled out the two issues that were flagged at twenty weeks. Since then it’s been a normal pregnancy and we’re now just about two weeks away from meeting our little one.