|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| … and baby makes three |
||
 Missed the first month? Read all about it. |
 |
First Trimester, Second Month |by jerri andreasen
The reality that we were pregnant didn't set in right away. Somehow I had thought that it would take longer to become pregnant. Or that it would be more complicated. Or… I don't know… maybe I thought that some deep psychological change would occur where I'd suddenly feel ready for parenthood, filled with confidence and wisdom, completely prepared to raise this little life we had created. No such luck. I was still the same old me. Liz didn't seem much different, either. A couple weeks passed. We were watching TV, and some corny commercial came on with a very young baby. At that moment Liz stood up and walked towards me, my head at tummy height. I looked at the TV. I looked at Liz's tummy. Suddenly, this hot wave of shock passed through me. I finally got — really got — that we were pregnant, and on a life-altering path from which there was no turning back. For just a moment I was scared out of my wits. I looked up and saw Liz's uncertain smile, and it all came together. I wasn't any wiser or any more prepared, but I knew that it would be alright. Something bloomed inside me, and I started crying. I was profoundly in love with this little thing inside Liz that was smaller that a pencil eraser. We scheduled our first visit with the Obstetrician for Friday, July 17th. We were taken in to an examination room and an assistant joined us shortly thereafter. She weighed Liz, took her blood pressure, and began asking questions about her health, the date of her last period (you'll get to know that date really well, having to recite it to every medical professional you meet), what she's been eating, whether she's been taking prenatal vitamins, etc. She was nice, cheerful, and quite at ease with the concept of two women as parents. She left, and we waited about ten minutes for the doctor to appear. Doctor M. looked over Liz's chart, and asked some of the same questions as the assistant had. Liz talked with her about her allergies and asthma, and the doctor assured her that she could continue to use her inhalant and nasal steroids, but should check with her before using any other drugs. Liz could also take Tylenol, but no aspirin. No alcohol, and go easy on the caffeine. And continue taking the prenatal vitamins. Then it was time for an ultrasound. This wasn't the kind of ultrasound you see on TV. This was a transvaginal ultrasound. It would be done by inserting an instrument into Liz's vagina, as opposed to running an instrument on top of her tummy. The doctor took us to a different room, left while Liz slipped into a gown, then came back and had Liz lie back in this barcolounger-like chair. She pulled out this instrument that looked like a karaoke microphone and smeared some gel on the tip of it, slipped a condom over it, then squirted some KY jelly over that. She slipped the head of the instrument inside Liz. I almost expected to hear a high little voice singing Achy Breaky Heart. The monitor by Liz's head filled with white lines, almost like TV static, on a black background. Doctor M. started moving the instrument around and found a big black oval in the midst of the static. She explained that the black oval was the gestational sac.1 After more searching we saw a small white circle, like a little ring, inside the gestational sac. The doctor identified that as the yolk sac, which provides nutrients in the early stages of pregnancy. Then she continued searching the gestational sac. She said something about not seeing the fetal pole. I had no idea what that was, and the doctor never told us. By searching the internet, I later learned that a fetal pole is the two points which indicate the vertical axis of the embryo. That is, the thing that eventually becomes the head and the lower extremities of the baby. It's a common identification hallmark of the embryo and fetus during ultrasound. When the ultrasound was over, the doctor wasn't happy. She wasn't clear with us on what the problem was, and we were too naive to know what to ask. She suggested that, since they were taking blood from Liz at this appointment, we could go to the lab and have another blood sample drawn in two days. They would then compare the hCG2 levels from the two samples. The doctor said that hCG levels are supposed to double in two days. We agreed, and spent a nervous weekend waiting for Sunday afternoon to get Liz's blood drawn. On Monday we called the doctor's office three times, trying to find out the results of the test. Liz nearly had to throw a fit the third time to get the doctor to talk to her. She told Liz that the hCG levels hadn't doubled. On Friday they were 18,600, and on Sunday they were 24,300 — only about one and a half times higher. Again, she wasn't very clear, and Liz didn't know what to ask. At the end of the conversation, the doctor asked Liz if she was okay. Liz said, "No. I don't know what's going on, and I don't know what to do." The doctor said, "Well that's what it's like with early pregnancy — you don't always know if it's going to take. Let's do another ultrasound next Friday and see where we're at." That was how she left it. Liz phoned me at my office and told me about the conversation. I was so upset my hands were shaking and I couldn't work. I decided to do some research on the Web. I found several sites that indicated that hCG levels vary, and that 48 hours isn't a hard and fast number for when they should double. Parents' Place at http://www.parentsplace.com has a discussion board with lots of questions and answers from readers on hCG levels. And the Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago's information on early pregnancy at http://www.advancedfertility.com/earlypre.htm is very informative. It said that in general, the hCG level will double every 2-3 days in early pregnancy, and that 85% of normal pregnancies will have the hCG level double every 72 hours. This was not the only place I found that information. Having this information available on the the World Wide Web made the week we waited for the second ultrasound much more bearable. It would have been better, however, if our doctor had passed this information along herself. The morning of our Friday ultrasound appointment, I called the clinic we were going to in order to ask about changing doctors if we weren't satisfied after this visit. There were five doctors in the clinic, and a friend had originally referred us to a different doctor there. Unfortunately, she wasn't taking new patients when we called to set up our first insemination appointment, so we elected to see another doctor in the same office. It turned out that the original doctor had been taking new patients, but they had to be pregnant. If we had only waited to select a doctor until Liz was pregnant, we could have chosen her instead of Doctor M. It sounded like it would be difficult (but not impossible) to change doctors if we decided to do so. It was important for us to stay with this clinic, because we wanted to use the same nurse practitioner when it was my turn to inseminate. We arrived for the appointment half-an-hour early. Perhaps Doctor M. had been alerted to our concerns, because she came right out and led us to the ultrasound room. She had a short break between appointments and wanted to do our ultrasound right away. Liz got into her gown, and the doctor prepared the ultrasound instrument and slipped it in. This time she was much better at explaining what she was doing, and in answering our questions. She found the gestational sac. She found the yolk sac inside. She moved the ultrasound instrument, and we saw a small white line lead from the yolk sac to the right. Finally, we saw the fetal pole. The doctor measured it twice, taking a picture each time. The first measurement was a little small, so she measured it again, and it was at exactly the right size for this stage of pregnancy, 6 weeks and 6 days. She gave us the first picture taken during the first measurement. Here it is. 
We also got to see the heartbeat as Doctor M. showed us a spot in the ultrasound that brightened with each beat. That was pretty darn exciting. After the worrisome week we had just spent, seeing all of this and hearing the doctor say that everything looked perfect was a huge relief. We scheduled another appointment for August 27th, when Liz would be almost 12 weeks pregnant. The doctor promised that we should be able to hear the heartbeat then. We can't wait. 
Notes 1 Gestational sac: A fluid-filled bag of membranes in which the embryo forms. Also known as the "amniotic cavity." 2 hCG: Human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy. |
