One More Week To Go

At this time next week, I will be having my 12 week ultrasound and (hopefully) watching my baby bounce around in my belly.  The Prince wasn’t at the last ultrasound, so he didn’t get to see our baby do its little dance last week.  I can’t wait to watch his face when he sees it.  Everything is so new and exciting to us.  I love sharing that with him.

I broke down and bought a home fetal Doppler to listen to the baby’s heartbeat.  Who am I kidding…there was no breaking down.  I never really had any intention of not buying one.  But I promised myself when I ordered it that I would not freak out if I didn’t hear the heartbeat early on.  I made a deal with myself that I would just use it for reassurance between ultrasounds. 

Well, the Doppler arrived on Monday.  I tried for half an hour a night, on Monday and Tuesday, to find the baby’s heartbeat.  I found mine with ease, so I know the Doppler works.  But I couldn’t find the baby’s.  I even filled my bladder as full as I could and tilted my pelvis in the air with four pillows, trying to get the uterus as far up into the abdomen as possible, in hopes that I could find the baby more easily that way.  No such luck.

I’m not exactly freaking out about the situation, but I am frustrated.  I still feel pregnant (whatever that means), so I am holding onto that.  Plus, the directions that came with the Doppler said that it can detect the heartbeat at 8 weeks, but will definitely find it by 12 to 14 weeks.  I am only at 11 weeks…so I’ve got a little ways to go before I can really be too concerned.  Still, I would be lying if I said that not hearing the heartbeat didn’t make me more impatient for next week’s ultrasound.

On a side note, my friend from Bring on the Babies could use a little extra support this week.  She has been so supportive to me and my fertility friends during our journeys.  It would be great if she got some extra bloggy love during her tough time.

Seven weeks

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write about yesterday’s ultrasound.  It may sound strange, but I haven’t really known what to say.  There were no huge surprises.  We have one very healthy baby, with a healthy heartbeat that was flickering away on the screen.  We have one empty sac that can barely be seen anymore. 

I had requested that the head nurse at the clinic perform my ultrasound.  I didn’t want to take any chances that I would walk away from yesterday’s ultrasound wondering if the nurse who did the scan was just not careful enough or just missed the twin.  Denial is a powerful thing.   The head nurse is incredibly thorough and, I know that if she says something is so, it is.  She saw our big baby immediately, but scooted around it and looked for the other sac for a long time.  It wasn’t easy to find, but when she found it, she was very thorough about making sure there was nothing in it.  Then, probably sensing that my tears were about to start pouring down, she quickly moved on to our healthy baby, and turned on the Doppler.  I thought seeing our baby’s heartbeat last week was awesome.  But I’ve got to tell you…hearing the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of a tiny little heart beating inside of your belly is truly awe inspiring!  The nurse had handled it perfectly.  I couldn’t dwell on my loss and listen to a miracle at the same time.

That feeling, of not being able to deal with both of those things at the same time has carried over, even though I’m not listening to the whoosh right now.  The mind is a funny thing.  It protects us in very creative ways.  My mind, instead of saying “Ha Ha…I was right and you were wrong Heart,” immediately decided that there never was a twin.  My mind capitalized on the fact that we never saw a heartbeat or fetus in the second sac (we only saw the sac itself), and convinced my heart that there was never a baby in that sac.  Sometimes, empty sacs form around an embryo that didn’t fully implant.  That’s what I have convinced myself happened in the case of our “twin.”  It doesn’t hurt as much that way.  We didn’t lose a baby, we just had an embryo that didn’t take.  That’s an easier pill to swallow.  I can move on from that.

Maybe someday I will feel equipped to experience the joy of my pregnancy and the grief of a loss at the same time, but today is not that day.  Right now, I need to go back to my “all-in” attitude and just start being over the moon happy about the baby I have.   If things go well at next week’s ultrasound, and there is no indication that it won’t, I get discharged from my fertility center, to my OBGYN.  The mixed emotions about being “discharged” will have to wait for another post, but for now, I am just settling in to the comfort of being truly, closer to out of the woods, pregnant.

Good News and Really Bad News

To say that I am lost right now would be a huge understatement.  We just got back from our 6 week ultrasound.  I’ve been incredibly sick all week and the nurses were concerned from the start because I had trouble staying in the room because I kept getting sick.  Then, drawing blood was almost impossible because I am so dehydrated.  By the time they took my blood pressure and heart rate, the doctor was already writing me a prescription for medication that will help me keep food and fluids down and that will also help me sleep.  My blood pressure is a little high, my heart rate is off the charts.  I’ve known all week that I wasn’t doing so great, but I just took comfort in the fact that I was so sick because I was housing two little babies…and that’s a lot of change to adjust to.

But then they did the ultrasound…and there was only one heartbeat.  It’s a strong heartbeat, especially given that we are only 6 weeks and 1 day pregnant.  But it’s one heartbeat.  The other gestational sac that we saw last week (which was actually the bigger one last week… and the one they found first) has gotten a little smaller since last week and there is no visible yolk sac in it, much less an embryo.  The nurse doing the scan was really sweet.  She said “Twins are fickle little things.  If we don’t see a heartbeat next week then we’ll know for sure that it decided not to stick around.  But don’t worry.  Your body will just reabsorb it and your cute-as-a-button baby with the healthy heartbeat will do just fine.  Sometimes these things just happen.”  The nurse also said that it isn’t guaranteed that the second baby won’t show up next week.  She said that sometimes with twins one will just be tucked up in a spot that is tough to see until the 7^th week.  But she won’t be shocked if the sac is gone or almost gone next week. If she had to bet one way or the other, she would bet that we have one baby.

I held it together and smiled until she was out of the room and then I lost it.  I started sobbing.  I was angry with The Prince because he wasn’t upset at all about losing one…he was just so excited to see the heartbeat on the one that’s doing well.  So, needing to lash out, I said “You seem a little too relieved.  I guess you don’t have to worry about daycare costs now.”  He insisted that he just isn’t going to get upset or get his hopes up about the twin because he thinks it is too early to know anything.  He said he’ll deal with it next week.  I explained that I’ve already researched the “vanishing twin” phenomenon for hours and, I can assure him, that things don’t look good.  (When I got home, I compared this week’s pictures with last week’s…the twin is definitely gone.  The sac has collapsed to about half the size that it was last week and the edges aren’t defined anymore like they were last week.)  He feels like we should be happy with one.  It is what we set out to have and we have one very healthy baby to be thankful for.  Plus, he said he’s been worried since last week that my body won’t be able to handle twins.  I have a lot of health issues and have had three uterine suspensions because my uterus keeps falling and getting stuck to my pelvic floor by adhesions…without the weight of babies in it.  He thinks that maybe this is nature’s way of taking care of what would end up being a dangerous situation for me and the babies later on.

I hear him, but I can’t process what he is saying.  All I can think is that I should be so happy and feeling so blessed to have one healthy baby…something I was beginning to doubt I was ever going to get…and instead I am crying and grieving a baby that we never even really saw.  I feel terrible that I wish I could go back to last week and not say anything about the possibility of twins…so that the nurse wouldn’t have moved the wand and I would never have known that there were ever two.  I have always had a “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” kind of girl.  But I’m not so sure in this situation.  If I had never known, I would just be over the moon thrilled right now, instead of bawling. 

My family is going to be here in a couple of hours and I don’t know how to stomach making my pregnancy announcement to them under these circumstances.  They are going to expect me to be so insanely happy, after everything we’ve gone through to get pregnant.  I don’t know if I can fake “insanely happy” right now.  I don’t know if I can even try.  And I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have to fake it…I should just feel that way.  How ungrateful am I that I am complaining about making a pregnancy announcement to my family?  What the hell is wrong with me?  Five months ago I would have given a limb to be in this position – one healthy little baby in my belly.  But now…UGH!  I don’t even know what to say.  I’m sorry and I hope this post isn’t angering or upsetting anyone.  I haven’t forgotten my IF struggle or what so many women are going through right now.  I know in my head how lucky I am…I just can’t get my heart on board right now.  It’s too busy being broken.