Week 9: The promised update – midwives and ultrasounds and heartbeats, oh my!

8 weeks 4 days

Well, I said I’d say more about the pregnancy later, and I’d intended “later” to be the next day, but I got wrapped up in Other People’s Drama ™. Using my patented To Hell With That Shit ™ system, though, I’m better now

We still haven’t gotten around to telling most people, just family, a couple of friends, and some colleagues. This isn’t intentional at all, actually – it’s just a matter of sitting down and writing the right emails to the right people, and I’m just too damned tired most of the time! My best friend in the world is heavily pregnant (she lives in Bahrain, so we only get to talk via email these days) and had just emailed me her soon-to-be-born son’s name two days before my ultrasound – I thought maybe I’d wait to see if there was good news in our camp before replying, but then got wrapped up in the above stuff almost as soon as I knew for sure that there was a baby growing in there, and so still have to sit down and craft a good response. And tomorrow, I’m busy allllll day. And Saturday too. I guess I should be writing these emails instead of blog posts! *grin*

Then again, I still have a bit over 31 weeks to get the news out People will survive.

Anyway… so… the ultrasound! As all of the back-posts I put up indicate, I was scared as Hell about it. I had this sense that everything was going to be the same as last time – I suppose some of this was self-protection, but right away, the midwife made things easier for me. We talked frankly about miscarriage as she set up tests to be collected and she asked about my symptoms, nodding approvingly when the answers seemed to look like a much better scenario than last time (this may be the only time in my life I’ve had a woman ask me if my breasts were bigger, though), and minimizing the number of tests so we could get to the ultrasound ASAP.

Now, this first ultrasound isn’t the kind of ultrasound you think of when you see it on TV – i.e. it’s not on the belly. I won’t give details, but let’s just say that the exam itself isn’t really set up to be very comfortable to begin with. It’s not easy to be chatty during the ultrasound, and the whole time, you’re watching this screen as the, er, probe is adjusted to try to get your uterus in view. Last time, when it finally did resolve, there was just a big black hole with nothing in it. This time, my brain just kept telling me “there’s nothing there… there’s nothing there” as she was searching for the right angle. All I could see was grainy white fuzz, and I had already prepared myself for disappointment when a little shape – also grainy and white, so just an ethereal little outline – showed up, like a cartoon. The midwife adjusted some things and… there it was.

That was definitely my “Holy Shit!” moment for this week. Quite possibly for my life so far as I’ve known it.

I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the tears on my cheek. I just kept saying, “Wow… oh my God…”, again and again. She showed me where the head and the heart were, although I could tell – I’ve looked at A Child Is Born enough times now to know about what the embryo should look like about now, and it all made sense. It was all pretty surreal – like an out-of-body experience – and I still haven’t come to terms with the fact that that little being is actually currently in my abdomen, enjoying a processed version of the buffalo chicken wrap I had earlier and needing more salad. Note to self: more salad.

The husband was of course pleased as well – I could, I swear, hear him grinning when I finally got him on the phone.

Anyway, the midwife was really pleased with what she saw – strong heartbeat, growth right on track, etc. She went out of her way to tell me she really didn’t think I’d miscarry with things looking this good, which was a great relief (and was probably intended to be such) – although of course it could still happen. But it’s a little over a week until the baby moves from embryo to fetus, and we’re probably out of the woods for early miscarriage soon after that. I’m not too worried about it – it won’t make it any easier if it does happen anyway. But it’s still hard to believe that in about 7 months, I’m going to be somebody’s mother

And now… mother and protobaby need sleep! More updates later. May your RSS readers curse me forever and forever.