I woke up this morning hoping I wouldn’t have a reason to go to the hospital. I had intended to call on the doctor’s office on Monday, tell them I was having some bleeding and convince them I needed an ultrasound.
Things started out well, just some cramping and very little bleeding. I was hopeful. But as the day progressed, it got worse. By six o’clock, I knew I needed to go to the emergency room. So I went—alone—armed with two books and a notebook, just in case I was waiting all night. Thankfully, it wasn’t that bad.
Urine sample, triage, brief exam, ultrasound. I was waiting for the ultrasound. I was waiting for them to tell me there was no heartbeat. I was prepared for the worst news because I’ve been through these exact same symptoms before. The resident finished listening to my heart and lungs and stepped out to get his attending and a nurse. They set up the portable ultrasound (attached to a laptop) and I laid there, waiting for the inevitable news. It didn’t come.
They saw the heartbeat.
I didn’t get to see it because of the equipment (ER versus obstetrics), so I was staring at the table as the three of them stared at the laptop monitor. After a moment, I looked up and there were three people looking at the image on the screen, smiling and nodding and saying, “There it is.”
Relief.
The heart rate was in the 140s, which I gather is a little low, but not a big concern. The embryo is measuring 6 weeks 4 days and I am 7 weeks 1 day, but again, they said it wasn’t a big concern. So, all good news there. I’m still bleeding a little and the doctor suggested it might be the placenta imbedding, so we’ll see. They’re calling it a “threatened miscarriage,” which seems… well… threatening, but I was assured that seeing the heartbeat gives me a 95% chance of carrying to term. Ninety-five percent sounds pretty good to me.
The resident (a really sweet guy, which has not been my general experience with military health care) was shocked that I wasn’t being seen sooner than ten weeks, given my age and history of miscarriage. He went out the nurse’s station, pulled up the appointments and got me one for this Thursday. More good news. I’ll be going to the naval hospital rather than my doctor’s office, but right now I’m okay with that. And if I have a good experience with them on Thursday, I may be content to stay put rather than seek out a civilian doctor.
Now I’m just hoping the bleeding stops so I can relax. I’m probably fooling myself—“relax” is not likely to be a word in my vocabulary in the next eight months—but I’ll take it one day at a time. After all, they saw a heartbeat.
Maybe I’ll get to see it on Thursday.
Red blood. Not a lot, but enough. I’m going to the hospital tomorrow.
I think the pregnancy hormones are kicking in. I feel weepy today, ready to break down if someone looks at me funny.
I have all these irrational fears that I’m not really pregnant, probably because everyone thinks it’s strange that I don’t have morning sickness. My other pregnancy “symptoms” are so mild I wouldn’t think I was pregnant if not for the fact that I haven’t had my period in seven weeks. I took another pregnancy test this morning—like I said, I’m irrational—because I had one left and because I just needed some sort of tangible reassurance. Of course it was positive—I really am pregnant, after all—but it wasn’t the reassurance I needed.
Between the strange off-and-on cramping I’ve had and a couple of days of light brown spotting, I think I’m going to call the doctor’s office Monday and see what it’ll take to convince them to do an ultrasound. I know they’re going to tell me to go to the ER at the hospital and I hate that—I hate hospitals to begin with, but this isn’t an emergency, it’s just me wanting a little comfort. That’s all.
I need to see that heartbeat. I need to know it’s real. And the thought of having to wait at least three weeks (and probably longer, since I doubt they’ll do an ultrasound at my first prenatal visit) is enough to make me cry.
I’ve known I’m pregnant for three weeks today. Twenty-one days to adjust to the idea of how much my life will change next spring. Three weeks is not really enough time to process that kind of information, really. Perhaps that’s why gestation of a human being takes thirty-eight weeks.
My emotions swing from one extreme to another. I am, of course, very happy. Quietly, peacefully happy. That is to be expected since this was what I was trying for. Less expected are the other emotions that have me wondering what the hell I’m doing having a child now, at my age, with my background, with my independent nature. I know it’s just fear that sets me on that path of questioning. Fear I won’t do it right. Fear I’ll lose myself, the person I’ve been for my entire adult life. Fear my kid will grow up to hate me. Fear I’ll screw it all up. Silly, I know. Or is it?
Regardless of how far women have come in the world, we still are expected to be the nurturers, to provide the bulk of the parenting responsibilities, to “know” how to do it all. I don’t know how to do any of it. I’ve never even changed a diaper. I’m supposed to know how to do that, right? Jay is the father, but he isn’t expected to know anything. That hardly seems fair.
I have months to work all this out in my mind and heart—and years of practice to get it as right as I can. As I told a friend, I don’t really have any good role models for the kind of mother I want to be. My mother certainly wasn’t one and I don’t see anyone who is doing it the way I want to do it. Of course, that means I have to make my own path and do it my way. I’m used to that. I don’t know yet what kind of mother I’ll be, but hopefully I’ll be a good one without losing myself.
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