The Gandalf of Embryos

I keep worrying about the baby.  I mean, how do I know it's ok in there?  I can't see it.  I can't feel it.  I can't check on it.  How do I know it's not growing deformed?  Or worse, how do I know it hasn't died in there?

Luckily, throughout our pregnancy, T has been optimistic and reassuring.  It's a role reversal for us; usually I'm the sunny, optimistic, everything-will-be-alright one and T's the more pessimistic, "realistic" (as pessimists like to say) one.  But ever since we got our first positive pregnancy test, when I was sure it was a chemical pregnancy and we'd have a mini-miscarriage within hours, T has always been like, "This is the real deal.  You're pregnant.  We're going to have a baby."

It's been wonderful to have him there reassuring me.  While I've kept up a steady hum of worry about miscarriage, he has never engaged in that, never thought we were going to miscarry.

This morning I woke up at my usual 4:40*am for work.  T got up off the couch where he tends to sleep on my work nights.  Even though I was feeling nauseated and constipated -- two symptoms that mean my pregnancy hormones are flowing well -- I worried to T:

    "How do I know the baby's ok in there?  How do I know it hasn't died?"
    "Because it's good at living," he answered.  "It knows what it's doing."
    "It does?"
    "Yeah.  If you're trying to imagine all the things it has to do in there to grow and form, and if you're thinking you could never do it, don't worry, because it's way better at that than you are.  It's like Gandalf in there.  Just when you think it's gone, turns out it's just TCB at Isingard.  It's got everything under control."

Wow.  Gandalf the Embryo. 



* 440 hertz is Concert A.  It's nice to have one's wake-up time have a musical reference.