Our First Doctor's Appointment

Yesterday was our first doctor's appointment to check on our tiny miracle. As soon as I woke up in the morning my stomach decided to mutiny against me, leaving me shaking with nerves and running to the bathroom. I'm sure if I had been able to get any sleep the night before things wouldn't have been quite so bad, but that didn't happen. I was either up having to use the bathroom or awakened by horrible dreams. I know strange dreams almost always accompany pregnancy, but so far I have mostly been experiencing unimaginable nightmares. Hopefully now that we got some positive news, these will finally go away. 

Before I knew it, it was time to hit the road and as we were driving the hour south to our appointment, my nerves once again got the better of me and we ended up having to pull over on the side of the road. Finally a public place to get sick, I was almost starting to believe that I might get away with that this time around. Oh well, I am sorry to any persons that were driving by and had to witness my gastrointestinal pyrotechnic display.

We finally arrived at our doctor's office a little past 9am and after filling out more paperwork, leaving a urine sample and getting sick once more, it was time to sit and wait to be called into the back. After what seemed like forever a nurse came out to get us. Right from the start I knew I was going to really like her and after a quick weight check we went into the room with the ultrasound machine. I was so scared just seeing it standing there, looming over us like a fortune teller. Was it going to predict good news or once again bring our world crashing down? Before that though, we had to go over our past few years of history and answer lots of questions. The nurse was so understanding and comforting. She never once made us feel like we were being rushed or that she didn't want to listen to us. She talked with us for almost 20 minutes before finally asking me to change into the gown so we could wait for the doctor. Finally a real GOWN!!! Not one of those skirts hanging on the wall forcing me to question how many other women had worn it before me. Nope, finally a real gown that even still smelled of disinfectant. It was a beautiful thing! 

When the doctor came into the room she immediately told us how sorry she was to hear that we had recently lost a baby and that she would allow us to take as many photos as we wanted of this baby once we knew everything was perfect. She also asked us a bunch of questions before giving me a short physical exam. As soon as she started feeling around on my stomach she said that it definitely felt enlarged and felt to her as though I was about 12 weeks along. Perfect, right where it should be. Just hearing that made me shed a tear or two, but I was mostly able to keep my cool. Then it was time to start the ultrasound. Because she did not know how far along I was, she decided to start with the internal ultrasound. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, but in no time there was a picture of a tiny baby up on the screen. At first Jeff and I did not see any movement at all and the doctor was trying to move things around to see what she needed. We both started to get very scared and I could see the color draining out of Jeff's face. Finally without her even saying anything I saw this little fluttering on the monitor. Barely able to get the words out I asked if that was the heartbeat that I was seeing. "Yes and it is very strong". Yes, she said Yes. Our baby has a heartbeat. A heartbeat that I am now watching, fluttering away. I couldn't begin to hold the tears or the sobs back and it all came out. Our baby is alive, strong and doing great. THANKS BE TO GOD!!!!! 

I looked over at Jeff who was still having a hard time seeing it, but he held my hand and I knew everything was in that moment, perfect. We were only moments into the ultrasound when our doctor got a call that a women was in labor upstairs in the hospital and the baby's hear rate and stats were dropping fast. I started praying for the mother as she told us to just sit and relax until another doctor could come in and take over for her. As soon as she left the room, I started crying even harder. All my fears were finally at ease, our baby is alive. Jeff just held me until I could finally calm myself down. We had about 10 minutes to our self before the next doctor came in to see us. He too was just as wonderful and I could never say enough good things about him. He asked us his own questions then started the ultrasound again. He said we were between 12 and 13 weeks and wanted us to go in for a stronger ultrasound to measure the skin fold on the back of the baby's neck. This test can really only be done in the 12th week of pregnancy so if we didn't do it today, we would loose the window of opportunity. When Jeff asked why we needed a new machine, he explained it as the one we were using was good, like a Kia, good car but the Lexus down the hall was better. Haha finally something Jeff could understand. He printed out our first baby picture and scheduled us for later in the day for the stronger ultrasound. Before we left he spent another 35 minutes talking with us about our concerns, the possibilities of a VBAC verses repeat C-section, and a multitude of issues. One being my overly active stomach. He gave me a prescription for medication but told me that the best thing to use was Vitamin B6 along with Unisom. He said there use to be a pill that could be prescribed with the combination of the two, but it was later taken off the market. I do have to say that I tried it for the first time last night and I had NO issues with nausea or vomiting all day!!! I felt tired but great!!!

Anyway we returned at 1:30 after a nice lunch for our second ultrasound of the day. This machine was a lot bigger and the picture was so much clearer. Instantly we could see our tiny baby happily bouncing around, kicking and waving his/her arms. It was an amazing sight that brought a few more tears to my eyes. We were able to watch the heart beating at 165 BPM, watch as the little legs and arms stretched as far as they could reach and even watch as he or she was rubbing their tiny nose. I watched in amazement for the longest time as the ultrasound tech tried to get the measurements she needed. Fortunately for us, our little jitter bug was not going to sit still long enough for her to do much of anything, forcing the ultrasound to take almost 45 minutes. 

So I am thrilled and so blessed to report that our little baby is doing wonderful. Growing strong in our love and with the grace of God, should be joining our family around March 8th. I will post pictures soon but tomorrow is when we are finally going to be telling our son and family about our little miracle and I want to make sure they are the first to see them. I am beyond excited and I know our son is going to be thrilled. I will try to post the video of us telling him, but videos don't always work for me on here. Until then, thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers, they worked!!!

And before I forget, the baby that our first doctor had to rush away to deliver was perfectly healthy, another gift from God.