Things I can't eat while I'm pregnant: salami, soft cheeses (you know, the ones that actually taste good like bleu, feta and brie), shellfish (yeah - crabs, shrimp, mussels, oysters)...so when I type it out, it's actually not all that long of a list. I guess you don't really miss a good thing until it's gone. Not to mention alcohol and cigarettes. And recreational drugs.

I'd give it all up (and have done so, except for an impulse purchase of herbed salami at some gourmet store where I was trying to pick up a sandwich after being at the doctor's office for 2 hours. I devoured it instantly in the car, only to find out that all deli meats are supposedly also off limits unless heated to "bubbling boil." I didn't add them to my list of no-no's because it just seems absolutely preposterous. But I am going to ask Dr. T about it during my next visit.

My next visit. Is it really a 'next visit,' or will it be my final visit? At 16 weeks, the brown shit (read: old blood) ended up paying me a visit again today. I haven't bled for almost 6 weeks. No, make that 7. My last sonogram at 13 weeks ended with "I don't see anything of any concern." The one prior to that - 12 weeks - was accented with a mumble of "There's no more bleeding, but the separation is still there." What separation, you may ask? The separation of my placenta and uterus or amniotic sac or whatever. I honestly don't know what is fucking separated. I know that upon calling the other Dr. I referred myself to this morning, the one who gave me the 12 week sonogram, she said that the last 13 weeks sonogram didn't reveal "much of anything." Then why did Dr. T tell me today (without a sonogram, of course) that the brown blood was probably remnants of what was there before? How can it be blood that apparently wasn't there? How can it, you ask? I have an answer. Because it's a new bleed. It's a new separation. At least, that's what my pessimistic ass is saying.

I'm trying to ignore the slight crampy feeling and stabbing back pains, and brush them off as incident to pregnancy. I'm trying. I know the prognosis was more than good, in the beginning, even after the diagnosis of the first subchorionic bleed. Initially, I was trying not to get attached, because of the little voice in the back of my head whispering: "remember your first miscarriage."

But this is not a miscarriage, or anything near such a term. It's a subchorionic bleed, which I was told would "resolve itself" by the second trimester. And it did. Or so I thought. So now you probably get my whole obsession with the determination of whether this is old blood from before, or something entirely fresh and new.

Well, we've named the baby, it's mine, mine and Jake's, and I don't want anyhbody to take it away from me.