The Clinic Chronicles: Part 5

The Delicate Balance

I was giddy seeing the bean for the very first time.

I forgot about everything else: the thing stuck in my insides, my nerves, my fears. All I could think of was, “That’s our baby! We have a baby!” I was still in shock, but I was now happy shocked.

“Is everything alright with our baby?” We asked excitedly.

“Well, let’s have the doctor interpret these images for you, okay?” the nurse said.

Blissed out, we were content.

Back in the good doctor’s little office we went to wait while she signed for the ultrasound images.

“Well, congratulations! You’re going to be parents in roughly 8 months!” she grins.

”You’re four weeks along and the baby seems to be holding on.”

We beam at each other. We beam at her and back at each other again.

“However…”

However?

There’s a however!?

“We need to put you on this medicine. Do you see this dark area here…and here? There shouldn’t be any. It means the little place where your baby is living in is not fully attached to your womb.”

And that meant?

“We need to help the baby attach more firmly or we could lose it.”

Whoa.

I couldn’t breathe. I think I crushed Mr. F’s hand but he wasn’t saying anything. I didn’t want to look at him at all.

“It isn’t your fault or anything. This can be brought on by the holiday stress, your travelling, work…there’s a lot of factors involved so we really don’t know what caused this. It just means we have to take it easy and be careful from here on.”

She began writing a prescription but I was barely listening.

I thought it wasn’t going to mean much. I honestly thought I was afraid to have the little bean. Now that I’ve seen that it was growing in me, I felt more afraid of losing that little pulse beating in my belly.

“So don’t drink, don’t smoke, watch what you eat, sleep early and lay off the stress. We’ll keep you on this for two weeks then you come back to me and we’ll see. Okay?”

Mr. F answered for us both. “We’ll see you in two weeks, Doc.”

The Clinic Chronicles: Part 4

And Baby Makes Three

“Is that my baby?”

I swear, my nose gets stuffy so fast, I was breathing out my mouth.

“Yes ma’am. That’s the sac, the little circle is where your baby is getting the nutrients. See that thread-like thing? That’s a tiny umbilical cord and the little pulsing thing at the bottom is your baby.”

I wasn’t full on crying,

I was holding it in for dignity’s sake but I did get a headache from trying to tamp down the waterworks. The monitor was getting blurry so I think I pretty much leaked enough.

She said we’d get copies, like snapshots of the bean.

It was just simply incredible. Ginormous.

I know its so cliché but I never felt such a deep-down kind of joy. I’m sure the technician sees things like this everyday so I hope she hasn’t grown numb being witness to the miracle of life. It’s simply awesome to be part of The Moment.

Mr. F and me plus the little bean….our little sprout.

We were going to be a family.

The Clinic Chronicles: Part 3

Open Wide and Say Cheese!

“So, let’s validate those pink lines with an ultrasound” Dra. O said after the cursory questions (and thankfully no IE!).

“Let’s see if your guess is right on the money.”

So with that, off we went with another nurse to what would technically be our little sprout’s first picture.

Of course, I thought it was going to be something like on TV. They put you up on a bed, paint your tummy with some kind of gel and use a contraption on you that look like a roll-on deodorant.

While that DOES happen, it turns out that I’d have to be a couple months pregnant-er to be able to use that particular gizmo (transabdominal ultrasound).

So what I’d get? A Transvaginal Ultrasound. Yep, right up my yahoo.

If anyone hasn’t seen a Transvaginal Ultrasound thingie, all I can tell you is that you had better be nice to everyone in the clinic…especially the nurse in the Ultrasound room. The thing looks like the prototype for a Jedi light saber. It’s a little short so maybe it’s for a tiny Jedi Master (Yoda, maybe?).

Sooo...the thing is put in a disposable condom and lathered with KY jelly. I was told to relax and breathe deep and YAHOOOOO. Needless to say I wasn’t relaxed.

“Ma’m relax.” The technician said. “This is going to be more uncomfortable for you since I have to move it around.”

“You have to what!?”

“I have to get a picture of your ovaries and your fallopian tubes.”

I felt like a popsicle. Cold, exposed and stuck on a stick.

Then, it happens. No preambles, no drumrolls, no heraldic blast of trumpets to announce The Moment.

“Ma’m? Sir? There it is.”

Right on the monitor…our sprout.

The shape of a kidney bean. A little circle in it. A little pulse in the middle of the stillness. I wanted to touch the screen. I looked over at Mr. F and there he was, no longer smiling, but I could see this moment would be something we would both remember for as long as we lived.

No shit.

Remembering it, I still get teary-eyed.