handle more than that!"
And so the day that I found out I was *surprise* pregnant was also the day we found out our hopeful house #3 caught on fire and the day Isaac started his first real job. How's that for an adjustment period?
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| How I told Isaac I was pregnant. He came home to this sign hanging up in the hotel room. |
We had just moved into our small hotel room the week before and were getting settled with our boys. As we began looking for yet another home, I got to go through that entire stressful 2 month process feeling early pregnancy symptoms galore, compounded significantly by the fact that my toddler slept in our only bathroom so night time potty breaks were taken down the hall and to the right. The desk people got to know my bed-head look really well by the end of our stay.
I began prenatal visits and enjoyed the practice that I met with. Because it was still pretty early, they didn't try looking for a heartbeat at those first few visits.
At what I thought was my 12 week visit, my midwife began the routine Doppler heartbeat check, squirting the gel on my tummy while Sam and Emerson sat in the room with me- Sam on the iPad, Emerson with a book, both with their little legs dangling off the chairs.
After a few minutes of trying to find a heartbeat, she went and grabbed another Doppler. And once again, she was unable to find a heartbeat.
My heart beat faster and faster with every second that went by, just waiting and longing to hear that familiar "thump, thump," but it never came.
My midwife slowly looked at me and said "I'm not finding a heartbeat and your uterus is measuring smaller than I would expect it to be. This could mean a couple of different things: It could mean that our dates are off and you're just earlier so the Doppler isn't picking up a heartbeat, or it could mean a possible miscarriage."
I feel like time kind of stopped in that moment for me. I nodded and stayed strong, not wanted to lose it in front of the doctor. In the distance, I could hear her explaining that she was going to order an ultrasound which should give us a better idea of what was going on and then she left the room.
I quickly snapped back into the present and realized I still had 2 kids to take care of. I gathered them up, talking quietly with Sam about his angry birds game and opening some fruit snacks for Emerson, all while my mind was racing and I was diligently trying to hold it together.
I knew my dates weren't off. I knew it because I had been tracking it. I found out I was pregnant 4 days after what should have been my missed period. So that timeline checked out. All that was left for me, then, was option B- miscarriage.
As we got to the car, I called Isaac at work and let him know what was going on. They scheduled the ultrasound for 3 pm that day, so we would have to wait another 5 hours to know anything for sure. He told me to come pick him up from work so he could help me with the boys and we began looking for a babysitter so Isaac could come with me to the ultrasound appointment.
My mind and heart went through so many emotions in the those 5 hours. I spent a lot of time on google, just trying to figure out what a miscarriage would even mean for me, for my body, for my recovery emotionally and physically. I went grocery shopping- just to keep something normal about my day. Isaac and I talked and I cried.
We found a babysitter for our boys and made our way to the ultrasound. We tried to keep our conversation light- neither of us really wanting to talk about what might happen soon.
When we went to the ultrasound appointment, the tech asked me some questions and began the scan. Isaac sat in the only chair on the other side of the room and we both just waited. As I stared up at the screen, not sure what I was hoping to see, I saw my baby. I saw a perfect little outline of the head, body, arms, and legs.
And then... I saw a heartbeat.
Less than a second after I saw the heart fluttering, the ultrasound tech said "That's a heartbeat!" She smiled and sighed a huge sigh of relief. Then zoomed in even closer so we could see it. It was quite a thing to see.
The heart was beating strong, as strongly as it should be beating and while the tech told us she couldn't personally inform us about the ultrasound results, she did say that I appeared to be measuring much smaller than 12 weeks.
We finished with the ultrasound and Isaac and I walked out of the room not really sure where to go with our emotions. We were beyond relieved that everything looked ok. There was a heartbeat. We even saw our baby moving. But then there were a million questions- how could I have been off on my dates? What could we have done to prevent having to go through this? We felt lucky and guilty all at once- so lucky to still have our baby and guilty that other couples are not as fortunate. And then in the end, it was so hard to believe. For half a day, I believed that my baby was gone. And suddenly, my baby is alive and well and I'm still healthy and pregnant.
Eventually we got the results back from my Dr and she informed us that I was measuring at about 10 weeks instead of 12 which would explain why the heartbeat wasn't showing up on the Doppler.
As I added the dates up in my head, that 2 week difference meant that I found out I was pregnant at 3 weeks along. What in the world? How do people find out they are pregnant that early? And how could my cycle have been so messed up that that even happened?
Then it all started to make more sense: "So that's how this *surprise* happened in the first place, my cycle must just be completely crazy."
It took Isaac and I quite a while to process through the emotions of that day. What a whirlwind. We were both exhausted. Eventually, I started readjusting to the fact that I'm still pregnant and our baby is still healthy. But both Isaac and I wanted to get a second opinion, just to make sure all of the measurements and dates checked out.
This morning, we went to a different doctor and got to see our Little Olive again with his/her strong heart beat and beautiful little profile. They measured me within a couple of days of the other ultrasound and confirmed that I must have just found out I was pregnant very early.
We are glad to finally announce this pregnancy and share our good news with everyone. My mind still thinks back to that day and how differently things would be if we hadn't seen a heartbeat. In a many ways it makes me a lot more empathetic to the women who go through that heartbreaking experience and makes me that much more grateful for this little person inside of me who is still healthy and growing stronger every day.
Given the way this pregnancy has gone thus far, I would not be shocked if our Little Olive has more surprises in store for us. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
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