Fascination, Fear, and Fecundity

Fast forward a bit, and now I am 8 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I am due on September 29, 2009, as calculated by the free online widget you can find in the links section, where there is also a link to a calendar of my pregnancy. Just yesterday I had my second ultrasound, in which we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat. My husband and I both teared up a little as we listened to the strong, rhythmic pumping. The heartbeat is very fast but steady, a startling 146 beats per minute. I was surprised by how much of the baby was visible. You could easily make out the head and little limbs from on the monitor. It was so beautiful.

Once, not too long ago, I knew, rationally, that pregnancy and parenthood are nothing new, that anybody can reproduce, that it is nothing special in the grand scheme of things, that it is just biology and population growth. I now believe I was wrong. I now know that, personally, it is so much more than that.

I feel like my husband and I have just found ourselves saddled with the most important job in the world. I feel like nothing carries more weight than the welfare of this child, as though any demonstration of responsibility or personal growth before now was just practice, like this is the real thing--what life was all about from the beginning. It is at once awe inspiring and absolutely terrifying.

These revelations are part of the mental symptoms of my pregnancy, and of course every pregnancy is different. There are plenty of physical symptoms as well. For instance, I had mild abdominal pain, which was for me, mainly on the right hand side. I did a little poking around on the internet to see what was 'normal' and eventually determined that such lopsided pain could be an early symptom of ectopic pregnancy, wherein the zygote implants outside the uterus, usually in a fallopian tube. I really worked myself up over this, finding out that ectopic pregnancies can lead to massive internal bleeding, always end in the death of the fetus, sometimes in the death of the mother, usually require surgical removal, and indicate a potential for future fertility problems.

So the first call that my OB's office received from me was a plea to have an ultrasound as soon as possible to rule out an ectopic pregnancy. I had not met my obstetrician nor had my intake appointment. I really tried to be composed, but I'm sure they heard the frantic tone in my voice. As it turned out, at just over 5 weeks, there it was, hanging out in utero just where it was supposed to be. At that time there was nothing to see but the gestational sac, which looked empty and black on the monitor. They did see that my right ovary was larger than my left, and there was a black spot, presumably indicative of recent ovulation. Now, three weeks later, I still feel an occasional twinge on that side and the large black spot was on the more recent ultrasound.

A short time later we had our first appointment, deemed the 'nurse intake appointment,' where a very young nurse gave us a brief summary of what to expect. I was a bit disappointed to find out that most of the doctors whose bios had influenced me to choose this clinic were not available for delivery at the hospital near me, even though they are all listed as staff. It felt a little bit like bait and switch. My OB's are with the Women's Clinic of Vancouver, WA, a group practice, and the hospital is the Family Birthing Center at Southwest Washington Medical Center. A link to their websites is available on the link page. We left there with scads of prenatal vitamin samples, some baby formula advertising, heads swimming with information, and some very scary decisions to make regarding genetic testing, which I'll go into another day. At that point I was happy and relatively symptom free, apart from the abdominal cramps. That changes. Every day is different.