Where's the Heartbeat?

I had an appointment with Dr. P today. I peed in a cup, got weighed, and had my blood pressure taken. So far things looked good. Then the nurse brought me into a room and had me lay down so that we could listen to the baby with the doppler while waiting for Dr. P to come in. We listened for it, and listened for it, and listened for it… for at least 10 minutes we tried to find it. Nothing! I stared up at the ceiling, I didn’t even want to see her face just incase she was thinking something was wrong. I tried to tell myself “Sometimes it’s hard for them to find the baby with the doppler in the beginning, this doesn’t mean that something is wrong.” Finally the nurse stopped, she said that sometimes babies can hide when they’re still small. She told me not to get upset, Dr. P would be right in and she would find the baby with the doppler. I waited for about 5 or 10 more minutes trying to remain calm, wishing that Howie was there and not in NYC. Finally Dr. P came in and asked me to lie down again. She put the Doppler on my abdomen… nothing. She looked for another 10 minutes or so and found nothing. She wasn’t saying anything and I started to get upset. I asked her if this meant that there was definitely something wrong or could it still be ok? She said, very much like it didn’t matter, “Well, the worse case scenario would be that you had a miscarriage.” Like that wouldn’t be a big deal at all! She said it the same way you’d say “Oh, we’re out of milk”! I couldn’t believe it! She finished writing something in my chart, turned around and said, “There is one of two things happening. Either the baby is fine and we just can’t hear the heartbeat or you’re having a miscarriage. I’ll call the ultrasound office so that you can go over there right now.” WOW!! No shit! Either the baby is alive or it’s dead! I’m so glad that you went through medical school and now get paid hundreds of dollars an hour because I would not have come up with that on my own! Sorry, she just pisses me off. I can’t wait to move and find a new doctor. So, anyway, I grab my purse and we walk out. She calls the ultrasound office and tells them that I need to have an ultrasound because we can’t hear a fetal heart tone at 13 weeks, that she’d like someone to see me in 30 minutes. I’m sent right out the door. I called Howie, then I called a cab, then I called Howie back. He tried to reassure me that the baby would be ok, then he said he was sorry that he wasn’t there with me, then he went back to saying that things would be fine. I just wanted to get to the ultrasound office so that I could know for sure. The cab ride was awful, the driver was slow and although it felt like 100 degrees outside and his AC wasn’t working he decided to put the windows up because there was something outside that was bothering him. My mind went blank. It was taking so long to get there and I just didn’t want to have a breakdown with this asshat as a witness. I just shut down. Once I got to the ultrasound office I checked in and sat down in the corner by myself. My mind started racing again. What am I going to see in there? What are the chances that it’s not ok? Is it more likely that I’ll get bad news or good news? If it’s bad news then I’ll never feel the baby kick. I’ll never give birth and hear my baby’s first cry. I’ll never know what it looked like. I won’t ever get to kiss it and say “Hi, I’m your mommy”. I’ll never get to take one of those cute pictures of Howie and the baby asleep on the couch. Just as my eyes started to well up with tears someone’s 2 year old daughter ran right up to me and smiled. I quickly wiped my tears away and said “Hi” cheerfully. She waved at me and ran away. That was it, I was about to have a full blown breakdown right there in the waiting room which was full of pregnant women and children. That’s when they called my name. I jumped up and we headed down the hallway. She told me that she was going to do a vaginal ultrasound and then maybe a regular ultrasound. I’m thinking, I don’t give a damn what you do, just do it! As she started to insert the wand I started to think that maybe I shouldn't look because if the heart wasn’t beating I didn’t want to see it. Before I could look away there was my baby and its beautiful beating heart. She turned the sound up so I could hear it and I started to cry. My little baby was waving its arms around, kicking, jumping, turning, just having a good time. She told me that its heart is beating at 166 beats per minute, then she measured everything from its nose to its spine. All the pieces measured perfectly. I’ve never been more relieved in my life. I called Howie in tears when I left to let him know that the baby was ok. I could hear him breathe a big sigh of relief on the other end. I told him all about the baby, what it looked like, what it was doing, I told him that I cried when I found out that the baby was ok. He told me that he was crying too.

I have one more appointment with Dr. P in 4 weeks before I move up to CT. I still don’t know exactly when that will be, but we’re close to making a decision about which house we want to make an offer on, so hopefully I’ll be moving in another 5 or 6 weeks. I really miss living with my husband.

Ok, one more picture, even though you're all probably sick of looking at pictures of the baby.

Falling in Love

Today is the first day of my second trimester! I can’t believe I’ve made it this far. Well, to be honest, I’ll believe I made it this far after my next OB/GYN appointment where I believe we will be listening to the heartbeat. If there is still a heartbeat I will let myself relax a little bit. I imagine that things are still fine though, only because I still feel wonderfully sick. I used to be sick nearly 24 hours a day, completely unable to keep anything down, but my body has given me a bit of a break. I’m now sick from around 7:30 pm to 11:30 am. I’ve lost more weight being pregnant than I did on Weight Watchers. I weighed myself yesterday morning because I swore that I had finally gained some weight but instead I found that I had lost 8 lbs. in the past two weeks! I haven’t seen a number that low on the scale in two years. Now it pops up, now that I want to gain weight. Of course I panicked, because I was already worried about the other 7 lbs. I had lost since the beginning of the second month, but 8 lbs. in two weeks? That can’t be good. I’ve been eating, I eat as often and as much as I can, it’s just that I can’t eat too much. It’s like my stomach has shrunk, I get full so fast. I’ve tried to eat little snacks in between my breakfast at home, my second breakfast at work, lunch, my first dinner and then my second dinner right before bed. I eat even when I feel sick. I only eat a little bit at a time, but still, I guess I’m not eating enough. I called my mother and she told me that it’s ok, that a lot of women will lose weight in the first trimester. She reminded me that she only gained 4 lbs. when she was pregnant with me. That’s when I reminded her that she actually didn’t gain any weight because I was 6 lbs. 6 oz. and her doctor was awful because made her go to Overeaters Anonymous and told her that she was unbelievably fat at every appointment even though she really wasn’t. She still insisted that I was perfectly normal and not to worry. I’ll talk to my doctor about it at my next appointment to be sure.

Yesterday was the first day that I let myself imagine what my baby will be like. A few days before that I had just realized that this baby might be a real thing. It was a big “HOLY CRAP! I have a real baby in there… I think… and it’s a part of me and a part of Howie! OMG!!! Howie and I made a baby, a little person with a heartbeat and a head and arms and legs! It’s a person and it’s actually still growing inside of me… I think.” Up until this point I think I’ve been sort of disconnected. Of course it’s amazing to see the baby on the screen, to see and hear its heart beating, and yes, I fell in love with it the moment I saw it as a little blastocyst. It’s just that I haven’t really accepted that I’m in fact pregnant, that there might actually be a chance that Howie and I will come home with a little baby in 6 more months! It might actually, MAYBE, be ok for me to think of it as a real person, because it might actually become one! So, yesterday, for the first time I was imagining what our baby would be like, what it would look like, what mannerisms it would have that would remind us of each other. I fell in love with it all over again, no matter what it turns out like, I’m going to love it and I can’t wait to meet it. Then a few hours later the negative side of me started up. How could I let myself day dream like that? What if I go in for my appointment next week and there isn’t a heartbeat? What if I lose the baby? After getting a grip I realized that if I don’t relax I’m going to miss out on everything. What if the baby makes it and I never enjoyed this time? I’ve been waiting so long for this and I’m not even allowing myself to connect with my baby. I’m cheating myself out of the whole experience because I’m afraid of losing something I’m afraid to fall in love with, but really, I fell in love with this baby a long time ago. So I have to stop this.
So, part of my bonding is talking to the baby, because I read somewhere that the baby might be able to hear me now. It’s not like I have Howie around to talk to, so talk to the baby. I tell it about its daddy, that he misses it now that he’s away. We also talk about what we’re going to eat for dinner, what’s on TV, how I’m too tired to take a shower or brush my hair now that it’s drained all of the energy out of me. Before bed I blow it kisses and say goodnight. So far I think that my child thinks I’m boring and that I watch way too much trash TV. This isn’t a complaint, just a fact, I am so insanely tired lately. By the time I get home I barely have enough energy to make something to eat and shower before I crash. I don’t even want to comb my hair or put on my pajamas when I get out of the shower. I just flop down on my bed until I become so cold from the air conditioning that I force myself up to get dressed and blow dry my hair. I can’t wait to find a home so that Howie can take care of the cooking and cleaning and I can do my best to take care of my personal hygiene. I just wanted you all to know that I’ve been reading your blogs and sometimes I comment if I have the energy to form a sentence, but if I haven’t commented I’m still reading and thinking of you. I would be better about commenting on the weekends if I weren’t reuniting with my husband, cleaning and house hunting. As soon as we settle on a house I will have more time to relax and recharge on the weekend, and I promise as soon as that happens I will be commenting again.

Lonely

My husband started his new job in NYC a week ago. Howie is staying with his parents in NJ and I’m still working and living in VA until we find a home. Howie came back to see me on Friday night and left early this morning. It was so good to see him, but it was so hard to say goodbye again so soon. He woke up early and boarded a train for CT so that he could meet with our realtor. He saw a house that he seems to really like, so maybe we’ll be living together again soon. We’ll see.

I’ve been pretty bummed out all day. I really miss having him around. He’s my best friend. I knew right away when I met him 9 years ago that he was the one for me. Now I love him a thousand times more than I did then and I can’t imagine life without him. It’s not that I need him around to take care of me, I can take care of myself. It’s just that he’s my best friend, he’s my soul mate, and when we’re apart I miss having that companionship. He’s a great husband and he’s going to be an amazing father. He’s very sweet, caring and respectful. He tries very hard to understand what I’m feeling and always listens to what I have to say. He cares about our relationship, he doesn’t just give up when we’re having a hard time. I love him for all of these reasons, and more. I can’t wait until we find a home so that I can be with him again.

As for P news, Wednesday will be the last day of my first trimester. I can’t believe it. It still doesn’t seem real to me. Not that the symptoms aren’t there, but I don’t think it has actually clicked with me yet. My most recent craving is for oranges. I don’t just crave them though, I have orange envy is other people are eating them. I want to steal their oranges. It’s insane, it doesn’t matter if I just ate an orange, I still want one. My next OB/GYN appointment is July 27^th. That will be the last appointment I have with my doctor in VA. I contacted the hospital in the town that we plan to move to and asked for a list of OB/GYNs that deliver there. They not only emailed me a list of OB/GYNs, they also emailed me a list of pediatricians. Pediatricians! I didn’t even think of that! I’m still taking it one day at a time, still afraid that I’ll find blood every time I go to the bathroom. I’m actually worried to enter my second trimester because if the nausea disappears how will I know that I’m pregnant? Obviously I’ll start to gain more weight, but I’ve become comfortable with the nausea being my main indicator of how this pregnancy is going. As long as I’m sick I feel like things are going well. I’m going to have to learn to trust my body again, which is difficult after having been let down by it so much. I have to trust that things are going just fine in there and not need a weekly update to feel reassured, because I’m not going to have that anymore.

A Sigh of Relief

The ultrasound went well this morning. Little Nugget is bigger and is actually starting to look like a little person, or maybe it's just that the ultrasound machine they used today is better than the one at our fertility clinic. We also heard the heartbeat! It was amazing! It's now beating at 172 beats per minute, which she said was good. She saw a place in my uterus where I had some implantation bleeding. She told me that I needed to take it easy, no exercise, no speed walking, no sex (damn it!), and no heavy lifting. All I should be doing right now is relaxing. I think I can handle that. I'm so unbelievably tired that all I want to do right now is sleep. Unfortunately I need to go to work in just a little while.

Here are the pictures from the ultrasound: