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.