Ollie story continued: ultrasounds

After the holiday bazaar was over I started spotting a lot. It was pretty alarming. I was almost 7 weeks along and I got that real uncomfortable feeling in my gut. I hate the first trimester. It can be so nerve wracking. I was hoping the spotting would magically stop, but it grew worse as the evening wore on. I could not wait around much longer. I left the boys with John and headed to the ER, since all the doctors offices were closed on the weekend.

After waiting what seemed an eternity, they finally got me a room and gave me a pregnancy test. And then I waited and waited and waited. Finally, a young friendly doctor walked through the door and asked "So, what brings you here?"

I explained that I was 7 weeks pregnant and that I was spotting.

He looked confused and said "Really?" And then he tapped his clipboard and said "It says here that your pregnancy test came back negative."

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---------------long pause-----------------------

"Um, what?" I asked.

The doctor inquired, "well, what makes you think you are pregnant?"

I explained my at-home-pregnancy test, and the blood test at the lab and all the nausea and morning sickness....I rambled on in a dazed confusion, trying to convince both of us that I was not making this whole thing up.

I was never so confused in my whole life. I had felt so incredibly sick at the holiday bazaar that day, I could barely stomach my subway sandwich. But maybe, it was all in my head? There are those men who claim morning sickness is all a hoax and that it is just psychological. In my altered state of mind I thought perhaps they may be right after all. I felt kind of foolish. And incredibly bummed. But most of all just confused.

And this is what I recall most vividly. In the kindest way possible, he patted my shoulder and said " I know, this really sucks."

Then he got down to business and said, there were 2 possibilities.
1) The urine test was wrong. The lab had already messed up twice that week
or
2) I was miscarrying.

I liked the sound of option 1, but the pessimist in me thought there was no way the lab had messed up again.

He then ordered a blood test and an ultrasound. The on-call ultrasound tech seemed very inexperienced and proceeded to jab and poke me for over a half an hour and did not say one_single_word. Not a peep. It was not fun. I tried to get something out of him, but he refused to say anything. And the longer it took him, the more my hopes dashed. In my mind, it was over.

Back in my room I waited over an hour.

Finally, the friendly young doctor returned and said "You're not going to believe it, but the lab did mess up your urine test. The blood test shows that you are pregnant. This is the 3rd time this week the lab messed up and I'm really ticked off......And the ultrasound shows a pregnancy but they could not detect a heartbeat. But 7 weeks is still a little early. You will have to follow up with your doctor this coming week".

I was stunned. The lab really messed up 3 times in one week? At least I wasn't going crazy. But why wasn't there a heartbeat? I could see Finn's heartbeat as early as 6 weeks. So I headed home with a mixture of thoughts. Relieved that this wasn't a fake pregnancy but concerned about the heartbeat.

Over the weekend the waiting game continued. My doctor's office was able to do a follow-up blood test on Monday morning , but could not squeeze me in for an ultrasound till Wednesday. Ugh.

While I was at a Teen Challenge dinner Monday night, I got a call on my cell phone from the nurse: "Your hormone levels have increased some but they have not doubled. It has not been 48 hours though, so let's just wait for the ultrasound, okay honey?"

I felt a little surge of hope. Maybe, just maybe, this little baby was hanging on. I thought Wednesday would never come.

*********It's late. I'm going to bed. I will write more tomorrow.