Ultrasound 2

This is the email I sent to everyone (in one form or another).

ONE BABY!!! Doctor said the other ultrasound must have had an echo or something weird. We looked around and around and around inside and out and there was no sign of a twin. This is good news for me, kinda disappointing but I wanted one the first time so I'm okay with it :) (One bassinet, Aunt Rose!) About the size of a gummy bear (minus the ears).

WONDERFUL HEARTBEAT!!! There's no question whatsoever that it was a-fluttering, I could see it myself very clearly. I also got to see the heart wave on the monitor (like an EKG) and then he turned the volume up and we could hear that rapid little beat strong and clear!

The technician said, based on averages, that it looked 10.5 weeks, but the doctor said because Mark and I are "big people" (hehe) it's probably more like 9.5 weeks which is what he calculates anyway.

SO.......... Everything is perfectly fine!!!

With all its leaping and kicking and jumping about, and squirming and tossing and turning... my own heart was a-flutter with joy. Mark said we have a little Viking in there, certainly an all-star soccer & hockey player, girl OR boy! Active like crazy. So it's either a very precocious girl or a tyrranical little boy... we'll find out more about that in a couple months.

WOOHOO!! Due date is still January 25, 2006. I doubt Gummi Goon will come early and I really want to avoid a Christmas baby...

Now for the pictures (Attached). You can clearly see the big lumpy head on the left and the little leg nubs sticking up on the right. The little dot above the baby is the umbillical cord.

fht_6-27-05 is the fetal heart tone.

baby_6-27-05 is the full image of the gummy baby.

close-up_6-27-05 is a closer image with the technician's sense of humor attached.

They are all GIF format and should open on any machine in any browser. You might have to save to desktop first and then drag it into Explorer.

LOVE YOU ALL
We're Hungry and Going To Eat Lunch
before I go to work.

INGRID & MARK

One more day

I'm starting to get nervous about tomorrow.

My two weeks of school hell are over. We had our simulation Fri-Sat this weekend and we did okay - I was very distracted, tired, and not anything up to my usual intellectual self. I feel like I let my teammates down. But I'm so grateful to have them, as opposed to others I know less well and trust less. These guys are great, and despite the imposed adversities that are part of the learning experience, we did pretty well as a team.

I did not do nearly as much "catching up" today as I had hoped - as all other classes have been neglected.

Anyway, nothing to do but worry now... I'm going to cry if it's good news and cry if it's bad news. I just want to see a heartbeat and I want to see them alive and well. I've been numb for two weeks and now it's really starting to hit me.

One more day of waiting.

Icky Pains

I took the rest of the week off. Mom stayed through Friday. We tried to do things like shop and go out, but my innards really felt awful. A lot of pain in my back and lower abdomen. Fearful thoughts go through your head when you're half expecting to miscarry, and maybe exaggerate that pain. I just wanted to lie around all week.

Also Mark came home Wednesday. I really need him here now. I'm terrified and don't want to go through this alone.

Today (Sat) I have a class in Malibu. I've been sitting most of the day so far, I think I'm fine. Not so crampy. Such a relief.

But still waiting. Why is it always waiting!?

Blood

Tuesday I went to work to try to be normal. I figured I can't dwell on it if I'm immersed in work. It felt fine.

When I got home I talked to my mother, who was panicking all day long calling my aunt, other doctors, etc. insisting on a second opinion, taking immediate action, etc. I don't blame her, but it was, to me, unnecessary. I have two hard weeks of school ahead of me - bad news confirmed will only make it impossible. I have to try to stay positive, try to hope, try to prepare myself for the worst at the same time.

I didn't go to class.

I called my beloved Dr. Lala, but I have to admit, all that talk of a molar pregnancy and other bad stuff really just put me in a worse mood of defeatism.

And around midnight I went to bed. I noticed blood. A lot of blood. I thought, this is it. I'm going to miscarry, and I'm home alone and scared shitless. So I tried to compose myself and called my mom and asked her to come out asap, and she told me she would in the morning, and to try to get some sleep.

I didn't sleep very well. I cried all night, feeling wholly sorry for myself.

The next morning (Wed) the bleeding had lessened. I called Mark. I picked up Mom from the airport and we had lunch and then went to the doctor (I had made an appt.). He examined me and said my uterus looked very normal, and that there was no bleeding. He spent a lot of time explaining the whole situation, why we had to wait and see, etc. I think this helped my mom more than me. He was very kind.

He took more blood to compare with Friday's, and gave me a copy of Friday's results. Friday's had been a palindrome - 144,441 was the hCG level. He was amused... I said it was auspicious.

Ultrasound 1

This has truly been a horrible day, and I was alone for it.

First, I drank way too much for the ultrsound. When I got to the office I had to pee so badly that I went to let some out. Then I drank two more glasses, which hit me within 5 minutes. By the time the ultrsound tech was there, I was dancing in the waiting room.

The ultrasound itself wasn't bad - not too cold, not too much pressure - but I had to go so badly that I clenched my teeth, curled my toes, and closed my eyes. The technician was nice, kept talking to me "almost done" etc. so I could run to the bathroom.

When finished I saw the faint trace of a lima bean on the monitor as I bolted for the door.

After relieving myself I waited in the lobby. The doctor called me into his office. I sat down; he came in, closed the door, and as he walked around to his desk he said, "It's twins--" at which my heart nearly lept off the floor, my breathing intensified, my stomach fluttuered "-- but there's no heart beat." My stomach dropped, my chest squeezed.

"What does that mean, then, that they're dead?"

"It could mean that, or a number of things." I barely remember any of the details of our conversation from this point so I will paraphrase. He had said last Friday that it could be dead, so that was a possibility. It could be the machine. It could be that their hearts had not developed quite enough yet, which would be unusual but not impossible. It could be a number of things. He wanted to do more tests, and have me come back for another ultrasound in two weeks. He needed my other doctor's blood test results so that he could compare the beta-hCG levels. If anything went wrong (if I started to miscarry) I should call him immediately. I have his home #.

Horrible horrible news. I can't go back to work. On the way home I call Mark, bawl to him; call my mother, bawl to her.

Go home, futz around, play Star Wars Galaxies all night. Try not to think about it.

Long, excrutiating waiting.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my own fathers.

And to Mark, a father-to-be (we hope).

:)

Dr. Porter

Uwe warned me this guy was cantankerous and a stickler for weight gain. I can deal with that. I was a little chicken to be by myself (Mark had to go back to Toronto) and my Aunt Rose was visiting so I figured she and my Mom could come for this ultrasound.

I liked Dr. Porter, definitely more personality and his "cantankerousness" is really just his dry sense of humor and blunt style. I can deal with that :) Aunt Rose liked him. Mom didn't like the way he shoved a magazine with two swimsuit models in front of her and said they had both had babies and that's what women should look like after their babies. I have to agree with that - seems a little perv - but I had already been warned about his obsession over weight gain.

The ultrasound did not come in that day. So Mom and Rose were pretty bored, and I still did not have any answers.

However, Porter told me I felt 6-8 weeks - that if I had been pregnant since March my uterus would be the size of a grapefruit. That meant that it was either 8 weeks or the baby had stopped growing since 8 weeks and it was a missed abortion (meaning it was dead and hadn't miscarried yet).

They drew some more blood and made an appointment for me on the following Monday for an ultrasound.

More waiting.

Mark's Birthday

Speaking of celebrating births - Mark is in Toronto but it's his birthday. BIRTH day!! :)

The Quest for a New Doctor

I told Uwe I am pregnant and he recommended his doctor. I also told Lisa and she recommended hers. I made appointments with both. Uwe's doctor can see me sooner, so I will check him out first. He also has ultrasound come into the office when needed and supposedly that was a day they would come in. But............ more waiting.

Exam 1

What a frickin nightmare. We arrive at 10:45 for my 11:00 appointment. The doctor isn't there. The waiting room is packed. I've never seen my doctor's office like this before.

I'm a patient person, very tolerant of things like the occasionally tardy doctor. Okay I'm not patient at all, but very forgiving. Anyway, around 12:30, Mark and I are still sitting in the lobby, listening to some other patient bitch about how this doctor is always late, etc. etc. I'm thinking, great, is this what I'm in for? This stinks.

Around 12:45 or so, I finally get into the exam room, then I have to go to the bathroom. So the nurse shows me the secret path to the restroom, and when I get back I do the naked thing, and wait for another half hour. There's nothing I hate more than waiting naked. At least I had Mark to talk to.

When Dr. Collier came in, he was devoid of personality. I feel bad saying that on a blog; maybe he was just being "clinical" and "professional" and was also harried from having come in late and having a massive back-log of angry patients. He gave me a brief exam (I'm sure this was making Mark squirm - but it's good for him) and said he thought I felt 6-8 weeks. That would work for April 20.

However, I felt much "bigger" to me, that I could really feel the pressure in there, so I wasn't convinced that it wasn't closer to 12 weeks. Also that he said "...but your uterus is posterior (to the back) and soft, so it's hard to tell at this point." Ugh. No answers.

Furthermore, this whole time we expected to get an ultrasound to get the dating. Collier spent ten minutes answering our questions (the cats: we can test for toxoplasmosis; hockey: standard liability response but it was probably okay, etc.) and ten minutes trying to figure out what to do about the ultrasound. Ultimately he gave me a referral to a high-tech imaging center.

When we left, with a "welcome" diaper bag of commercial shit, formula, magazines, etc. I'll never use or want or subscribe to, Mark and I were already determined to find another doctor.

We went to the lab, got more blood drawn, and so on.

I tried calling the imaging center. They would not only not take me same day (no surprise, as it was going on 3:00) but they would not see me before 12 weeks, and since we weren't sure (which was the whole point of getting the ultrasound - to find out!) she made me an appointment for July 11.



Mark and I went to lunch and I called my boss and let her know I'd be taking the whole day off.

More waiting.