The empty womb.

I had my first “I’m pregnant” visit with the Dr. today.

It was kindof bittersweet. We had an ultrasound that showed…..well…..nothing. Mostly just an empty womb.

So he sticks his camera in me and we see black. And a lot of it. Then he zooms in. And we see gray…nothing. And he zooms in again. And then he points to a tiny little blob. And tells me that’s my gestational sac. Then says “If you really use your imagination, you can kindof see another circle right here inside it” I squinted, and tilted my head, and could barely see it. “That’s your yolk sac, and it’s full of all the nutrients the baby needs.  And right here is where we should see your baby. Since it’s not there, it could be a miscarriage, or it could just be that you’re not as far along as we think you are.”

It makes sense that I wouldn’t be that far along because my periods had been so crazy, and 4 months apart. That means I wasn’t ovulating 2 weeks after my period because…well, because I wasn’t.

I couldn’t sleep last night because I was so dang excited. I could hardly wait to see our baby for the first time. I kept thinking of how it would feel, and how I could put it into words (because let’s be honest, we all knew I’d be blogging today). I thought of the relief it would be the when the Dr. said “everything looks great here! This baby looks happy and healthy, we’ll see you back here in ___ weeks.” I imagined how thrilled I would be. I could see myself crying (out of joy) with Josh again because everything is finally working out. I was thrilled to come back to work and when Karleen and Aundrea asked how it was, I would tell them just how incredible it was to see everything. What an amazing feeling it is to have a child growing inside of me. I couldn’t wait for that look they both do when something SO cool has happened to someone they care about (me).

Instead there wasn’t anything there and nice Dr. Man said “I can’t tell you everything looks good yet because we can’t really see anything. It isn’t necessarily bad, but it still could be.” They can ‘only’ (I know it’s a miracle that we can see anything at all, but am I a bad person for thinking it isn’t fair? Why not like ¼ of a millimeter? It’s just a little smaller…..) see things that are bigger than 1 millimeter, so if I’m only 5 weeks along, that would explain why there just isn’t anything to see yet.

The bottom line is that I’ll go back next week. At this stage, the tadpole is growing like 1 millimeter a day (isn’t it amazing that we know that?) so by this time next week, it’ll be 7 times the size it currently is, and we’ll easily be able to see it.

When Dr. Man first said all that, my heart sunk a little. I was just so excited to see our baby. I was so thrilled to know that everything was OK. And now everything was not OK. Seeing an empty womb is almost (not quite, but almost) as bad as seeing a negative pregnancy test, and it kindof broke my heart.

Dr. Man also mentioned that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, which really freaked Josh out. I’m not sure he really recovered from that actually. He is nervous and worried and we’re both just hoping and praying that everything is fine. 1 in 4 was a relief to me because I’ve read stuff saying up to 40%...25% seems much better.

When I told Aundrea (who is always the first person to get any news in my life) she said “that’ll never go away. You’ll never stop worrying about your kids.” Which is a valid point. I guess this is just the beginning of this phase of our lives and I suppose this is the least of our worries.

The took my blood so they could check my hormone levels (would it have been a bad thing to tell Dr. Man that I have exhibited evidence of abnormally high hormone levels. Crying for no good reason. Being WAY too happy about the snow. Having zero patience for my dishwasher which failed to turn itself on and forced me to use a big spoon for cereal…), if they’re high (the test maxes out at 100,000), that’s bad, if they’re low (we’re hoping for 500) that’s good. So, I guess we’ll see what comes of that. I’m no medical expert, but today kindof feels like a 100,000 day….

Mostly I feel OK about it, but Josh being nervous and worried makes me nervous and worried. He’s normally the “I’m sure it’s fine, stop worrying.” guy. So, when he gets nervous I get REALLY nervous.

Here’s hoping that my hormones are lower than they feel, and my baby is growing at a steady pace so that next week we find one full womb.

On a lighter note, Josh got to watch the nurse lady feed the fish and pull all the snails off the wall while I was checking in. He really loves that Nemo tank. Someday, if he's really good, he might get a fish tank for his birthday.....