7 1/2 week update
How do you spot the pregnant chick in the Farm Boy parking lot?
She's the one rooting through the bags recently deposited into the back of the station wagon, eating the meat directly out of the package.
I've just been for my first ultrasound, and everything looks great. One wee baby snuggled in just the right spot, measuring one day ahead of schedule at 7w4d and with a steady, strong heartbeat of 158 bpm.
One tiny piece of the iceberg of anxiety has melted away. I can't quite give myself over to giddy joy, but I find myself stoically satisfied. My next appointment, the ultrasound and blood work of the first step of the integrated prenatal screening test, seems a lifetime away at five weeks from today.
My regular OB was accompanied by a resident with a soft voice and careful manner. He welcomed me and asked me if I had any questions about the pregnancy. I told him that this is my fifth pregnancy and that I'm an obsessive researcher, and I could probably answer a few questions for him instead. He laughed in an uncertainly polite way, and excused himself as quickly as he could. I should have been less blunt, but I was feeling disconcerted instead of comforted by being back in the OB's all-too-familiar exam rooms again.
I did have a few questions for my OB, things I just wasn't comfortable asking the kindly resident with the liquid brown eyes. I wanted to know about testing for abnormalities, and I wanted to know if there was a pathology report from the D&C last November. I was standing next to her when she pulled out my file, thick with the reports and results from two full-term pregnancies, two miscarriages and the lost twin. I found myself reading over her shoulder, knowing it was a dangerous game and yet unable to stop.
As she told me that the pathology report did not include information about Trisomy 18 or other genetic abnormalities, I held my breath and felt separated from my roaming eyes, wondering almost idly what I would do if I stumbled across information about the lost baby's gender and wondering if that's what I was really seeking. Perhaps for the best, she closed the file before I could make sense of any of the clinical report and assured me that there was nothing in the file to cause any concern about my current pregnancy.
Seven and a half weeks and all is well. It's all I need to know.
She's the one rooting through the bags recently deposited into the back of the station wagon, eating the meat directly out of the package.
***
I've just been for my first ultrasound, and everything looks great. One wee baby snuggled in just the right spot, measuring one day ahead of schedule at 7w4d and with a steady, strong heartbeat of 158 bpm.
One tiny piece of the iceberg of anxiety has melted away. I can't quite give myself over to giddy joy, but I find myself stoically satisfied. My next appointment, the ultrasound and blood work of the first step of the integrated prenatal screening test, seems a lifetime away at five weeks from today.
***
My regular OB was accompanied by a resident with a soft voice and careful manner. He welcomed me and asked me if I had any questions about the pregnancy. I told him that this is my fifth pregnancy and that I'm an obsessive researcher, and I could probably answer a few questions for him instead. He laughed in an uncertainly polite way, and excused himself as quickly as he could. I should have been less blunt, but I was feeling disconcerted instead of comforted by being back in the OB's all-too-familiar exam rooms again.
***
I did have a few questions for my OB, things I just wasn't comfortable asking the kindly resident with the liquid brown eyes. I wanted to know about testing for abnormalities, and I wanted to know if there was a pathology report from the D&C last November. I was standing next to her when she pulled out my file, thick with the reports and results from two full-term pregnancies, two miscarriages and the lost twin. I found myself reading over her shoulder, knowing it was a dangerous game and yet unable to stop.
As she told me that the pathology report did not include information about Trisomy 18 or other genetic abnormalities, I held my breath and felt separated from my roaming eyes, wondering almost idly what I would do if I stumbled across information about the lost baby's gender and wondering if that's what I was really seeking. Perhaps for the best, she closed the file before I could make sense of any of the clinical report and assured me that there was nothing in the file to cause any concern about my current pregnancy.
***
Seven and a half weeks and all is well. It's all I need to know.
Labels: Postcards from my uterus
Said DaniGirl at 9:26 a.m. #
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