Yesterday I had my first meeting with my midwife … except that she wasn’t there, because she was at the hospital delivering a baby. Which I suppose is fair enough, and when I’m the one in the hospital I’ll be happy if she stays with me instead of going to meet people who are only a little bit pregnant. But it did make the whole thing feel a bit futile, and all I can say is I hope I like her when I finally meet her, because I think I’m pretty much committed to this practice now. I mean, they have my blood and everything.

Anyway, so I saw a nice man-doctor instead, who wasn’t offended that I wanted to go the midwife route and hadn’t chosen him and didn’t really want to see him. He answered my questions and was nice and helpful. In return, I let him feel me up. Ahem.

I’m being scheduled for a sonogram, which will be exciting, and hopefully I’ll see the midwife at my next appointment in four weeks’ time.

After all that I had a bit of an existential moment last night, thinking about how terribly inexorable the whole thing is, and how I’m for it now, basically. And other stuff about love and commitment and hitching your bark to someone else’s star and how in order to take the happiness on offer in this life you have to accept that some of it depends on another person, so you’re no longer self-sufficient; and other drivel I happily can’t remember today. And where the heck I picked up that phrase about barks.

I keep catching myself thinking “I’ll do that when I’m pregnant.” Then I have to remind myself that I really am pregnant now and so I probably should be doing whatever that was – eating cottage cheese for extra protein or taking walks at lunchtime or playing Mozart while making dinner. (Okay, so that last one can wait a few months. Though it wouldn’t hurt me to be more cultured either. But if the baby hears a lot of West Wing dialogue instead, it’ll grow up to be a hotshot lawyer. Or a quality-viewing couch potato.)

I suppose it’s starting to sink in a little more. I just ordered the Mayo Clinic pregnancy book from Amazon, because I should probably stop winging it and directing my pregnancy with no more information than what I’ve already read and what I glean from the Internet. I really don’t want to read every book out there, either for pregnancy or child-raising, because that way madness lies. And I do basically believe that pregnancy’s the easy part – all I have to do is sit here and the baby will do all the hard work. But I do need a basic reference source, and we don’t have web access at home. Which is probably just as well.

I’m confused about whether it’s okay to eat feta cheese (basically, the UK says it is, and the US says it’s not), and then there’s this new thing about deli meats being a source of food poisoning. What? No ham sandwiches for the entire pregnancy? You’ve got to be joking. That’s going on the list of questions to ask the midwife.

Reading back, I see a few loose ends I should tie up. The queasiness came back yesterday for the first time – since I’m now at 6 weeks, counting doctor-style, I think I’ve had a pretty good run of it so far. Triscuits didn’t really help and I felt icky on and off all day till dinnertime. Today it’s much the same, but a bit milder. Maybe this is how it’ll be from now on.

I did make an appointment with the midwife that was recommended to me by the lovely birth center, and cancelled the one my dodgy doctor had made for me. I’ll know more after next Monday, when I meet her, but I’m hoping she’ll be exactly what I’m looking for.

The doula never got back to me – maybe she doesn’t check her e-mail, but it doesn’t bode well. I never phoned her because I went the other route for advice instead. (Another dead end was when I called the number for the local La Leche League contact, since breastfeeding and natural birth seem to go hand in hand – why I don’t really know, and I think it just adds to the negatively hippy image that breastfeeding seems to have acquired – so they might be able to point me in the right direction. A man answered and I hesitantly asked was that La Leche League. He said “Oh. My wife. She’s in San Diego for a while,” and put the phone down before I could ask anything about when she might be back. So much for that.)

Still pregnant, still in denial. All good, really.

On Monday (which was a day off, of course), I decided I really should do some pilates, even though I’d much rather loaf on the sofa and watch the cooking channel. So very reluctantly I started the DVD and assumed the positions. About ten minutes in, I had a pain in my tummy and decided God (or Alton Brown) wanted me to stop, so I did. That turned into what I think was my first official pregnancy queasiness – it lasted a couple of hours until I ate some crackers and felt miraculously better. I felt about the same the next morning before breakfast, but I’ve been fine ever since. Long may it continue; but I’m toting around a ziplock bag with a few triscuits in it now, lest I get caught short again.

I have a good lead on the OB front – I called the birth center that’s about an hour away and admitted that while I wasn’t up for a totally natural birth, I was looking for recommendations for an OB in the area who would be not-so-pro intervention. The lovely nurse I spoke to knew exactly what I meant, and gave me good advice and the name of a midwife who works in a hospital not too far away. She sounds perfect. So now I have the number for her agency (or practice or whatever you’d call it) and I will call as soon as the office empties out at lunchtime (or I can sneak off with my cellphone).

So there may be a happy medium available after all, which is really all I ever wanted. I’m very pleased about this, but I’ll be pleaseder when it’s settled and I’ve found a doctor I like and trust. Then I can just get on with watching the weeks go by and waiting to find out when I’ll actually believe I really am pregnant.

In other news, I bought my first official maternity wear yesterday. A very modest purchase – just a black and a white t-shirt that were on sale at Tar-jay. Basics. Practical. How could I not?