The First, And Only, Ultrasound

We made it to the appointment with time to spare, and got right in. They dropped us off in a room. Proud Mommy got the little gown they give you, took a seat on the table, and we waited.

Let's take a break for the guys. Ok fellas, we've gone into orbit, we've seen the bottom of the ocean, the frontiers have pretty much been explored. Except for this one. The women's ob-gyn offices. That's right, I got to go in with her.

Normally, when I'm in the room waiting for my doctor, I get to look at posters of the ear, or diagrams of what the various stages of arthritis looks like in the knees. Random stuff. In this office, they give you the goods: the female reproductive system.

And the pictures! Right there on the ceiling. Two pictures of pretty flowers. Later, in another room, there was a picture of a waterfall, or something. by that time, I wasn't paying much attention.

So. We're in the room, and we look around, and we aren't really seeing anything that looks like an ultrasound machine, even though I don't have a really firm idea of what an ultrasound machine looks like. The doctor comes in and asks some questions. She takes a sort of history, most of which was done at that intake appointment. Then she does a physical exam. I sat up at the end of the table by Proud Mommy's head. There was really no view of that part of the exam. I'm pretty much grateful.

Doctor gets done with that, blabs some more, and asks us if we have any questions. Just the way she said it, and the way the appointment had gone, it almost felt like she was about to thank us for coming in and send us on our way. Well, we wanted that ultrasound! We asked, and that turned out to be the next thing she was going to do.

It only took a moment for her to go out and wheel the machine into the room. At this stage, it's the magic wand ultrasound, and doctor preps it to start sounding the ultra, I guess. Then, in it goes. It looks just like on TV, with the little radar scope image coming up, and she works and probes it around.

It's a black and white image, sort of a gray static. The we see this sort of dark hole that looks sort of like a squat triangle with rounded corners. We see some round thing that looks kind of like a ring. And we see what might be a little speck next to it. I don't really know what we're looking at, so we're given a guided tour.

The squat triangle? That's the uterus, home of futurebaby. The sort of ring looking thing? That's the yolk of the egg as it turns out. The little speck next to it? That's futurebaby at six week size. We're at week eleven. Turns out futurebaby is no baby after all. So why is it still in there? Well, they call it a missed miscarriage. Should have been a miscarriage around week six, but it didn't happen.

You think of all sorts of funny things. Like within a week of all those pregnancy tests, the baby had died. Like they tell you that it doesn't feel like there's anything going on in there, and that's normal; except Proud mommy didn't feel like anything was going on in there, and there wasn't anything going on in there. Like when Proud Mommy took another test and the lines were all weak, barely showing up. They say that's normal, and any line is a positive result, and the time of day can affect it or if you've been drinking a lot it can dilute the hormones; except the lines were very weak and it turns out the baby was dead by then. Like going to the intake appointment with a baby that was already dead (but the appointment wasn't a total waste: we got a nice letter informing us that the baby is very unlikely to have cystic fibrosis).

Like how the whole time, I was cheering and comforting and constantly encouraging and telling her how the baby was definitely in there and everyone has these fears and every other mother out there has probably done and said and felt the same sorts of things and it's all going to be fine and our futurebaby is going to be the cutest futurebaby ever. Except it isn't. And it won't.

Instead of picking out toys and cribs and diapers and little tiny baby clothes, the only thing we get to decide is whether or not we want to try again.

The First Ultrasound

So today is a day of nerves. We're having our first real appointment today.

We had the intake appointment a while back. That's where they got us into the system, did a few blood tests, a urine sample, all that good stuff. Which is great, but it doesn't let you see the baby. It doesn't let you hear the baby. Proud Mommy still isn't feeling the baby inside her. Time has slowed to a crawl as we wait for this appointment. Is the baby still there? Can we just get a little information here?

The appointment is in a couple of hours. Wish us luck.

Seen Any Good Movies Lately?

Well, I never would have imagined it and it never would have occurred to me to ask, but it turns out that when you go for the ultrasound, you may be able to get more than just a printout of that hazy radar looking sort of picture.

Depending on your facility, you may be able to get a recording that you can play on your own computer. Be sure to check ahead of time, because some places use VHS, while others can make you a copy onto a DVD-R disc. In a couple more weeks, you might see a white blobby smudge right here on this very website.

The First Appointment

We're in week eight, and we had out first doctor visit.

By which I mean that we sat in a room and filled out a bunch of paperwork. With a bunch of other people who are also filling out their paperwork (it made me wonder if we'll keep running into these people over and over, kind of like when you run with the same pack of cars for hours at a time on a long road trip). They pretty much just want to get you loaded into the system so they're ready to go when you have your first real appointment, in another two weeks or so.

It is useful stuff, though; don't get me wrong. I'm happy to say that we laughed at all the right places (said one nurse, "You just got to the part about being cousins, right?"), and managed to get through it ok.

Proud Mommy had some family history of diabetes, and so we also got to go downstairs so she could pee in a cup. We couldn't find the right bathroom at first. You know, the one where, when you come out, there's that little pee safety deposit box that you put the little cup in when you're done. As luck would have it, we ran into one of our fellow paper-filler-outers, and she was able to direct us to the right place.

Proud Mommy is also feeling a little more confident about the reality of the baby, but another pregnancy test has helped, and we get to have the ultrasound on April 2. The she'll have bird's eye proof that there really is a baby in there; although what kind of bird looks into prengant women's tummies, I have no idea.

Still to come: psychic baby predictions, groin babies, and tasting the rainbow.