Are you there, God?

(c) Shutterbug

For a non-religious person, I sure have voiced a lot of little prayers over the last four weeks to an entity I don't think I believe in.

My life has changed so dramatically with my new/old job; there is no time throughout the day to contemplate my situation, or obsessively Google the week of my pregnancy, and my every worry. And there is now reason to worry.

We counted down the days to our first ultrasound this week, at exactly 7 weeks. We went to bed thinking about our baby, and woke up thinking about our baby. We watched videos of embryonic development, envisioned what was going on inside of me, and wrote notes to our future baby.

The ultrasound at Mt. Sinai was the typical clusterfuck. It was slated for the morning of Friday, September 23: the date we considered our anniversary prior to our marriage, since it was the night of our first date. We took this as a good omen. I booked a vacation day, and scheduled an additional medical appointment for the afternoon to maximize my time off. Then Mt. Sinai called to reschedule the ultrasound to the day before, requiring juggling, then called twice more to change the actual time of the ultrasound. It was finally set for 8:15 on the 22nd with Dr. Liu.

We arrived to face the usual packed waiting room, which conflicted with the nurse's explanation that my appointment was moved up twice to eliminate large gaps in appointments, seeing as how there "weren't that many". I checked in at the desk, letting the receptionist know I was here for my pregnancy ultrasound with Dr. Liu, and was informed that Dr. Liu was away at a conference. Say what now? Apparently Dr. Rebecca Arthur would be filling in, and we were directed to the same change room/waiting area as is used for cycle monitoring. The half hour wait annoyed me more than usual after the specific direction we'd received to be there earlier. Eventually a staff member moved us to the same old hallway outside the same old ultrasound room. My wife noticed there were spouses attending for the first time, so it became obvious that all of us waiting here were already pregnant, and not just the women having cycle monitoring scans. 

As the first couple went in, then emerged a few minutes later, I turned to my wife and said how inappropriate I thought it was to have the rest of us sitting directly outside the room. To say there was a lack of privacy would be a colossal understatement. What if someone received bad news? As soon as those words were out of my mouth, nurse Maddie came out and asked the couple behind us to return to the other waiting room until she came to get them. When our turn came to be led into the ultrasound room, there was no one else in sight. Our moment of truth had arrived, and my heart was beating out of my chest.

Dr. Arthur was waiting at the foot of the exam table, barely visible in the dim light. She asked if I had had any pregnancy symptoms, and I replied that I had increasing fatigue and heartburn, along with some minor cramping that had come and gone since day one. She prepared me for the test as if reading from a page, saying she would insert the ultrasound wand and then would be silent until she was sure of what she was seeing. I was nervous, scared, excited, and still wanting actual confirmation that I was actually pregnant - in addition to confirmation that there was just a single embryo in there! I wasn't sure what they could tell me this early on.

Dr. Arthur's silence stretched on, and on...and on. She moved the wand, pressed it to one side, pressed it to the other side, moved it some more, pressed some more, and squinted at the screen. My nervousness reached a fever pitch, then grew into a hard knot in my stomach that began to sink as it became clear something was wrong. Nurse Maddie stood up and walked around behind the monitor, looked at the monitor with Dr. Arthur, then they looked at one another, and then Maddie returned to her seat beside my wife, who was beside me. Just as I felt like I was going to scream, Dr. Arthur began to speak.

What she actually said is now a garbled mess in our brains. She used the words "abnormal", "reason to be concerned", and mentioned the proportion and amount of space. She confirmed she could see a "pregnancy sac", at which point my wife asked about the size of the embryo, and Dr. Arthur said it was what she expected. We weren't understanding the problem. The doctor herself admitted she wasn't exactly sure herself what she was seeing, and wanted us to go to the hospital in a week's time for another ultrasound. What?!?! She said it was just too soon to tell what was going on, which made me incredibly angry. Clearly she suspected something, but she wasn't saying.

There was a roar in my ears, and her words just kept repeating in my head, making it hard for me to formulate any questions. I finally asked whether she saw a heartbeat, and she replied that she saw "a flickering". What does that mean? She was giving us nothing to go on, and we were being ushered out of the room. Maddie briefly grabbed the back of my hand and squeezed it as she handed me my progesterone prescription, and told me to continue taking it for now. It was the only sign of compassion in the entire appointment.

We left in shock, and drove home in silence. Eventually we cried, ranted about our ongoing frustration with our medical care, and Googled like fiends at home. But there is no magic website that can tell you about your own unique situation, you can only read about how things turned out for other people. The outcomes range from miscarriages, to women talking about their now-toddlers that doctors had told them didn't exist.

With a day's perspective, our sadness and confusion gave way to rage and frustration. Anger at the slew of doctors with no bedside manner, the lack of individualized care, and lack of information. There was no way I wanted to go back to Mt. Sinai at this point, and no way I thought I could wait an entire week for any further news. I called my GP, who scheduled an ultrasound for me at her hospital, but it is still four days away.  In the meantime, there has been no call from Mt. Sinai to confirm the ultrasound Dr. Arthur apparently ordered there. There has been no offer of care whatsoever. I don't know what I expected, but I feel like a number with no relationship to anyone. 

And as today wears on, there is a dull ache beginning in my midsection. I just feel unwell, and for the first time in seven and a half weeks, a trip to the bathroom showed some spotting. 

I fear the worst, even as I sit here praying for the best.

BFP Sinking In

Another week further  (c) Shutterbug

I had my IUI procedure done on August 17, and on August 19 my job was eliminated. So much for maintaining a stress-free environment full of positive energy.

I was luckier than most of the other people who received similar news that day, because at least the company wanted to find a place for me: back in a job I'd held fifteen years earlier. It was an incredibly traumatic and emotional day as I waited for hours to hear if I was among the coming layoffs, found out that I was, then heard there was an opportunity to stay, but it would be as simply a team member in a department where I had, a lifetime ago, once been the manager. A tough situation, but I knew I had to make the best of it with everything we were going through.

We got our "BFP" (big, fat positive pregnancy test) on August 28, and I started my new job the very next day. The news changed everything. I felt like I was floating, walking around with this wonderful new perspective and an entirely different future opening up in front of me. Work stresses suddenly seem so insignificant in the face of our life-altering news. In one instant I felt like a different person. It's been similar to the experience of getting engaged and married; suddenly knowing how that portion of my life story would play out. And now I get the chance at another role.

The road has been so long already that we've been afraid to get our hopes up: it's not like we don't know how many hurdles there are still to pass. I've taken a silly number of home pregnancy tests to convince myself this is happening, because there is so little tangible proof this is even real. My first beta blood test (to test the hCG level) was done two days early due to a clerical error, and came back at 90: a high enough number to make us think both eggs could be on the go. OMG. It is completely bizarre to walk around for weeks thinking first that there might be nothing, then knowing there is something, but still wondering if it is one baby in there or two. Beta two was 150, but it was beta three that was the most important. All we have to go on are these phantom numbers that hint at what's going on inside my body. It's surreal.

I had the blood test on Thursday, and my wife and I were hoping for the results yesterday. I sat at my desk waiting for the nurse to call, jumping at every ring, wondering how I would have a personal call with so many people around me. What if it were bad news? I was distracted the entire day, and finally left a message on the clinic voice mail asking for our results, but a call never came. Excruciating.

We were on pins and needles today, as each hour ticked past and we still didn't know if we were ok. One phone call. One number. The range of acceptable numbers is ridiculously broad, because it would not only indicate whether a pregnancy was on track, but could give an idea of how many embryos were growing. It was our understanding that anything over 500 was a "good" number. A high number of a few thousand would mean there was more than one baby. As the day wore on and still no call came we became convinced the delay was due to bad news. We kept ourselves busy and tried so hard to keep calm but the mind is a crazy place. 

The waiting ended in the mid-afternoon. Beta three is 774. It is perfect for one baby. We are on our way. There will be no more news now at all until our first ultrasound, scheduled at seven weeks.

My wife has spent time on several different online forums as we navigated this process; now that we've had success she moved to a baby bump group instead of an infertility support group. They create a time line for your pregnancy where each growth stage is represented by different seeds or fruits for the embryo's size. Last week our baby was a poppy seed; this week he/she is an apple seed. Next week a sweet pea. Sounds like a photo project waiting to happen. 

In the meantime we've started a journal to write notes to this baby we've so desperately wanted. I know we are not supposed to get our hopes up, but I want to remember everything. 

I've plugged all our dates into a couple of online calculators, and they say my due date will be May 10, 2012. Mother's Day is May 13 - whether the baby has actually arrived or not, we will be celebrating for the first time. I will be a first-time mother at 42. Not what I'd planned for myself, but sometimes the universe has other plans.