The Preggo Diaries #1

After seeing the 'Pregnant' symbol pop up on the pregnancy test, I immediately called my husband upstairs and showed him the test.

His face was pretty priceless.

We hugged and cried and laughed - and immediately called our respective parents to tell them the news. Even though so much can go wrong in the first trimester, we didn't want to wait. My in-laws were ecstatic. So was my father.

My mom, however, was a little more reserved.

She knew that since I was overweight and had fibroids, my chances of complications were much much higher than the average pregnancy. We had a long discussion about how I would need to eat better now, and exercise more, so both I and the baby could be healthy.

Then she told me that regardless of if the baby was a boy or a girl she would be buying it nothing but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff, because I had been so crazy about them as a kid, and driven her nuts with them, so it was only fair she pass that obsession on to my child for me to enjoy.

We both laughed at that.

The next day I called my doctors office and made my first prenatal appointment. The earliest they could get me in was February though. My friend who was currently pregnant, was shocked that it would take that long, but I had read that most doctors won't see a pregnant woman until she's at least two months along. Also, my doctor is pretty popular, so I was really surprised.

Then, I started spotting.

Everything online told me that it was probably nothing, that spotting happens in the first trimester, that it could be late implantation bleeding, and that the only time I should worry was if the blood was dark red and I had period like cramps.

Thankfully what I was seeing was only light pink, and it disappeared quickly. But when it happened again the next day, and the day after that, I began to worry.

I called up the doctors office, and even though they confirmed what I had read online (spotting is normal, etc etc etc), they were able to get me in to see the doctor the next day. She, according to the nurse, wanted to do an ultrasound.

That made me worry even more. If everything was normal, then why was she doing an ultrasound?

Well, it turned out the nurse hadn't told the doctor everything. When we showed up the next day, she thought we were there to do an ultrasound on the fibroids - which she thought was a bit silly since I had just had an MRI done the week before - and to discuss surgery. We promptly explained that, no, we weren't worried about the fibroids at all anymore - we were pregnant.

The doctor laughed, promised to talk to her nurse about being more clear, and congratulated us.

She explained that it turned out that I only had one fibroid, not two, and that it was as big as the first doctor told us. However, it was in the best spot possible - outside of the uterus and attached to it's top - and shouldn't affect the pregnancy in any way.

The doctor did a quick ultrasound and confirmed that yes, I was pregnant. Our baby, which really looked more like a blob that early in the pregnancy, was hanging out in my uterus and bobbing around. Afterwards she did a quick physical and went over what I could and couldn't do and what I could and couldn't eat now that I was pregnant.

Once she was done, the nurse came in and took my blood to check my HCG levels. The nurse explained that in two days I would need to get my blood drawn again, to make sure that they had doubled.

They didn't double.

The doctor called once they got the results back and told me that while they had increased, they had not doubled like they were supposed to. Also, my progesterone levels were obscenely low - a 4.7 when they should have been at least a 15.

She explained that by now the baby should have a heart beat. The fact that we hadn't seen one when we went in was worrisome, but her ultrasound machine wasn't that powerful, so it was quite possible that it missed it. Therefore she was sending us to a local lab to get a second opinion. Their machine would be stronger, and would be able to pick up more.

The earliest the local lab could get us in was two days later though (thanks, in part, to the nurse sending over the wrong paperwork, not once, but twice) so we spent two days in agony, wondering if the baby we were dreaming of was actually a blighted ovum, or if the pregnancy was a molar pregnancy, or if I would miscarry. There was a lot of crying and a lot of praying that went on during that time, and I pray I never have to go through that again.

The day of the big ultrasound dawned, and I downed my 35 ounces of water like a good girl. By the time we made it to the lab though, my bladder was about to burst. Neither sitting nor standing was comfortable, and I slipped off to the bathroom once or twice to relieve just a little bit of the pressure. My husband scolded me each time, but I'd like to see him down that much water and hold it for that long.

The techs finally called us into the ultrasound room, and I tried to make myself comfortable on the bed. The tech went to town with the ultrasound goop and the wand, and we held our breaths, praying she would have good news.

For the longest time she didn't say anything, so I immediately feared the worst - that something was wrong, and we would have to wait to hear the bad news from my doctor.

My husband, who was just as stressed out as I was, broke down first and asked, 'Does it have a heartbeat?'

The tech nodded, and explained that our baby had a heartbeat of 160 beats per minute and was really moving around in there.

I grabbed my husbands hand and started crying. The tech looked at us like we were crazy until we finally explained that the situation. She congratulated us, printed out some pictures (which still didn't look like much but had more detail than the first ultrasound) and sent us home to recover and bask in the good news.