Monday, December 10, 2012

Teeny, tiny, blinking heart!

It's been a few days since I have posted. The combination of holiday busyness and the general feeling of nausea that I have been experiencing of late can be be attributed to my lack of blog productivity. Sorry!

To get you up to speed, I will recap Friday's visit to Shady Grove. To be honest, Chris and I arrived to see Dr. Sasson with the almost certainty that we were pregnant with twins. I didn't post much about this just because I wanted to wait until we had ultrasound confirmation. Dr. Sasson told me multiple times that my high HCG levels were indicative of multiple births. That added to the known fact that we chose a two-embryo transfer contributed to Chris and my near certainty that I was carrying twins.

We arrived at the office and were taken back to the ultrasound room. Dr. Sasson eagerly greeted us; he said that if we were lucky, we would get to see a heartbeat on the screen. Apparently, at around six weeks, the heart starts beating. Last Friday, I was six weeks and one day, so we were hopeful that we would get to see an actual heartbeat.

The more pressing question was how many heartbeats we might be able to see. For a solid two minutes, Dr. Sasson looked around my uterus and didn't say anything. I was rigidly staring at the screen, praying that something would be in there! He kept telling me to breathe.

Breathe? Yeah, right! I was staring at the screen, anxiously awaiting some blob or mass that could be a baby.

And then, I saw it--- a teeny tiny flickering heart inside a sac. Even though I could barely see the form of a baby, seeing a beating heart was enough to bring us to tears.

Dr. Sasson did some more searching and didn't see another sac or another heartbeat. He did believe that two embryos originally implanted because my early HCG numbers were so high. However, at some point in the last week, we lost one of the babies.

I wrote in an earlier post that I never imagined I would be disappointed after hearing I was actually pregnant. But to be honest, my heart did sink a bit because Chris and I so definitely thought we would be adding two babies to our family this summer. At the same time, we were thrilled to have seen one heartbeat. It was such an odd, contradictory, happy-sad emotion, one that I have not exactly felt before.

Dr. Sasson spoke with us a while longer and covered the medications I need to continue to take (continue Estrogen and Progesterone twice daily until I reach eight weeks) and he went over my restrictions. At this point, he advised that I not do an strenuous activities, especially any activity that could be jolting. So it looks like I am going to be a walker for the next few weeks.

We will have another ultrasound this Friday and then another next Friday. After our third total ultrasound, we will "graduate" from Shady Grove. Weird, but good. I can't imagine not having Dr. Sasson be a part of my pregnancy and delivery, as he has been such an integral part in getting us to this point. However, he assured us that he will be speaking with my Williamsport OBGYN to get him/her up to speed.

Today, a few days after our first ultrasound, Chris and I have been able to process and work through our sadness over the lost baby, and we have been able to start gearing up for the unbelievable, incredible realization that I AM pregnant; this summer, we are going to hold a real, live baby!



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