11 weeks ultrasound

The doctor wanted me to do an ultrasound at the end of my first trimester. I guess, I couldn't wait. I did one today.

The new ultrasound laboratory we had been referred to by my new doctor was wonderful. It was awful to wait with a full bladder, but what an ultrasound!

The doctor was completely "into" the process. Looking at everything in detail, examining, measuring, sharing what he saw with me...... For the first time it felt that I was able to see my baby clearly and through the efforts of someone who cared to ensure that everything was as it should be.

An email sent to a friend that evening:

Had another ultrasound. The technician was a star. What could have been another visit of trying to make sense of a grainy blob became magical when he initiated conversation with me and pointed out how it was moving (I'd thought it was because the machine was moving), its size, how things were normal, heartbeat again.... we watched the baby for a bit as he tried to get the best pics for the report, but in that search, we saw three distinct movements a wriggle kind of thing, a kick kind of thing, and a very definite bumping movement with its bottom. Wow!!!

First time I saw the guy, and I was so caught up with the magic, I didn't even notice that it was a rather intimate contact for an excited conversation between strangers :D I hope I get that technician each time I need an ultrasound.

Online pregnancy resources

Ever since that disastrous first meeting with the doctor, I've become obsessed with finding things out for myself. If I have a problem, what I should or shouldn't be eating, health suggestions, development of the baby.... the works. I just read on and on and on.

Many pregnancy sites give week by week information on the development of a pregnancy, including developments in baby, mother, symptoms and possible help, any tests that may be due around that time, etc.

I found this information to be of great help, as I was worried that not going to a "proper" gynaecologist may mean that we miss doing or checking something crucial.

No such thing has happened so far, but I have found out a whole lot of information that is quite interesting. Also, I have learned to start looking at my pregnancy in terms of weeks than months. I am always aware of exactly how many weeks and days along I am.

I guess a part of me is waiting to breathe in relief on completing the first twelve weeks and overcoming most of the risk of miscarriage. Everything is going fine, but my fear will not leave me.

Luckily these sites keep me entertained, and let me know what is happening to my baby. If is is actually happening, or things are going wrong is anyone's guess, but I like to imagine that my baby is growing like the pictures show.

Full onslaught of hormones

A friend offered a shoulder to cry on whenever I needed it, and look how thoroughly I used it today.

Heh, remember, you've asked for it :D

Ok here goes - bitching-and-whining list first:

1. Nausea is the greatest evil of mankind. The pregnancy glow is a hoax to sucker women into propagating the race
2. Life is reduced to bodily functions - sleep, piss, eat, cry, puke, piss, want to puke, cry, sleep, piss, sleep, puke, etc Did I mention sleep?
3. Having more than one child is a symptom of a liking for torture. Possible indication of insanity. Shrink before doc.
4. Everybody and his cousin knows what's good for you till you want to scream or kill someone
5. Desirable pregnant women are a myth or a symptom of delusions in my husband. If it pukes, bloats, farts and yawns every time approached, porn star boobs don't matter - it isn't a sexual creature
6. Some women apparently breeze through their pregnancies glowing and all that - don't trust them. It can't be natural.
   
7. People just don't understand that I am pregnant, not terminally ill, nor mentally deficient.'
8. Unmarried male friends get speechless with the news. Since women all over the world have been getting pregnant all the time, I'm not looking too closely at the surprise about ME being pregnant. It doesn't seem likely to translate into a compliment no matter how it unrolls.
9. I can feel something almost like sore muscles when I bend, stretch or sit hunched for a long time. Doesn't feel like a charming baby. Feels like something is inside that wasn't
10. people only understand cliched basketball stomachs as pregnant. The bigger the more believable. No one knows how much blood sweat and tears gets us there or cares how that impressive basket ball becomes a person - this definitely seems to be a case of size matters - bigger or smaller depending on whether you are watching or growing.
    

Blessings:

• I seem to be forgetting stuff these days, so hopefully, this experience is not going to return as nightmares, since I will forget it.
• Porn star boobs. Gone up a size already. Stomach is jealous and competing, so it isn't as awesome as it could have been. Still, I intend to enjoy it before the stomach wins.
  
• Husband and assorted friends will take a lot more crap from me than earlier.
• I get a kid at the end of all this.  - Don't know if I will call it a blessing in the future, so might as well take this chance

Milestones:

• Puked last week. After thinking of it for weeks, It happened. It seems to be like losing virginity - now that I've done it, it happens more easily and often
• Saw the heartbeat on ultrasound. Pure magic, though it did sound like a dog panting "sh...sh" very fast rather than any heartbeat I've ever heart. However, it sounded, it was there. Things are okay. All tests and measurements are as should be :)
• Doc put me on progesterone to prevent miscarriage (no issue now, but earlier miscarriage, so playing safe) progesterone is exactly how it sounds - a hormone. Guess what hormones do to pregnant women? Nausea, fatigue, crying, etc. Yippie! This is definitely not helping stabilize my usually whimsical and recently mercurial nature. If I wasn't convinced that the doctor cared deeply about this so far conceptual and statistical baby, I'd have happily put her first on my slaughter list.
  
• Officially declared my mind on vacation - I just don't recognize myself anymore. Never used to sleep in the afternoons, never was fussy about food, never was the tantrum variety. This alien in my body is, which is how I found out its not me
• No. I don't feel pregnant or maternal or any such thing. What I am feeling is mostly pissed which isn't even particularly feminine. The baby is still mostly hypothetical as far as my experience goes. The tests say it exists. My experience says nausea and the rest of the nasties exist, but there isn't anything remotely babylike that I can feel so far, unless you want to stretch imagination desperately and include the tightness in my stomach.
  
• Saw the mess in my cupboards. Considering how I wear long tops these days because my jeans are unbuttoned underneath, thought I'd pack away everything that doesn't fit. This meant that I packed away three formal trousers and some other clothes I'd never worn even once - its anyone's guess If I'll get into 26 inch waists ever again. Quite traumatic. NONE of my favourites fit. Naturally, I cried myself to exhaustion, leaving the puzzled husband with a cranky and sleepy wife, and a pile of clothes on the floor he dared not make a decision about for fear of upsetting me further.
• Other such incidents including sulking at the brother-in-law and then crying about his insensitivity because he joked that I gave him the cup with less tea in it and kept more for myself. He has since then avoiced me like the plague and speaks only when necessary, and VERY carefully. Don't know if he is being considerate or if I've finally managed to put him off women for good. For that matter don't know if that considerate is to protect his fragile feelings or mine.
  
• Felt left out because I hadn't spoken with people at work for over 4 days - didn't they think I was capable of working anymore?
  

If I am not careful, this alien that has shanghaied my body is going to ruin my well developed image of being a somewhat rational person sometimes.

This summarizes my existence. Believe me, if this is entertaining, it is a tribute to my phenomenal talent with language, and not the experience itself.

Phew, feels much lighter having shared all this. Wicked of me, but my choice of sharing this with you is because of your inexperience with pregnancy. At least you can't tell me that this is how it is for everyone and make soothing noises about how all women go through it, etc. I expect you to be fully indignant and appropriately sympathetic as required, because you don't know what's usual and can still get in touch with the shock of how something like this can impact the unsuspecting and unwary innocents like ourselves.

Vidyut

Felt much better after having written this. :D

Another doctor

Went to a local physician who has some pregnant women in her practice. Talkative, eccentric woman with an extreme agenda against religious practices that are harmful to health, which endeared her to me immediately.

I showed her the two ultrasound scans and the list of the different tests the other doctor (that we didn't like) had asked us to do. She wasn't particularly impressed with the ultrasounds, as they didn't contain anything to be particularly impressed about. She spoke about a lot of my concerns, and answered everything in detail.

This was very good, and finally I started feeling that someone was on our side. She rubbished the changed prescription for folic acid, saying that it was expensive and unnecessary and not better than what I was taking earlier in any way, saying that doctors often prescribed more expensive medicines to promote them. She said that I could finish the tablets I'd purchased and then go back to my original stuff, which was fine.

She said that it was good that I'd started the folic acid the minute I suspected pregnancy - even before the test. She said that the progesterone was a good idea, though we hadn't really tested my progesterone levels, and added a weekly injection to the mix.

She revised the list of tests and removed a couple and added one another one.

She recommended two labs - one for the ultrasound and the other for the bloodwork, which she liked for their work. I had never considered that some labs may be better than others until then, and had thought that my frustration with the uninspired ultrasound guy was something I'd have to live with.

Cautiously happy about the care I was receiving for the pregnancy, I returned home feeling much better.

I must say that this is a regular physician, and many people told me about how a gynaecologist is the best doctor for a pregnancy. She didn't seem as flashy or "in the lingo" as the other doctor. However, if I look at the population of the earth, I'm getting the feeling that good management of pregnancy is less about rocket science and more about careful attention. I'm willing to risk being attended to by a less than specialist who gives full attention, than a specialist who does a vaginal examination without any conversation and talking on a phone all through.

Another voluntary ultrasound

Still feeling very lost and resourceless, haunted by memories of the earlier miscarriage, I found myself needing reassurance that my baby was okay.

My visit to the doctors had been hopelessly uninformative, and I was feeling lost and helpless to know if my baby was okay.

It was silly, I knew, what would be would be, but today, for Valentine's Day, I treated myself to an ultrasound for reassurance purposes. The ultrasound technician was also not a very involved guy, or particularly interested in seeing much detail (or perhaps, how much detail can you see in a grain of rice through loads of flesh?) and I was vaguely irritated with him for not making much of an effort about the whole thing. He came to know that we hadn't seen the heartbeat in the previous ultrasound, and that was pretty much the only thing he looked for (165.71 bmp) other than the CRL (13.3mm) and cervix (3.5cm). Whatever, I knowing my baby's heart was beating and size was okay was what I needed.

Maybe it was a waste of money, but here is an email I sent to a close friend after the ultrasound.

Hi,

True to my paranoia, I was very worried about my baby today. I do it every 3 days or so, but this time, I had the possibility of doing an 8week ultrasound for the heart beat to reassure myself. I guess the last experience left more of a mark on me than I guessed. So I decided to treat myself to a Valentine's day gift - an ultrasound, though I had planned to stay away from the things unless necessary - heard that its not such a wonderful thing after all, though not evil.

What a beautiful experience. S/he was moving. I couldn't really understand it, it was all a blob in a circle, but the technician remarked that it was "active" - whatever that means, making getting a clearer image difficult. What do you expect from a kid of ours? Call it heriditary. He tuned in to the heartbeats, and I thought it was some machine error. Sounded more like the fast panting of a dog trying to go "sh...sh" - very fast 158BPM to 164BPM. I asked him if it was the heart beat when the monitor started showing rhythmic bumps and he seemed to be measuring them and it was. Blame the hormones, but I had tears in my eyes. I had feared the absence of that heart beat like the last time.

Also, unlike the last time, the dates I claim and the dates the ultrasound assesses match. This guy/gal is right how its supposed to be.

Spent an hour after returning staring at the prints, grinning. Now I know its definitely hormones - I have never needed more than a brief scan through to understand any data, and here I was staring at pictures of a blob and repetitive sound waves and reading the same "report" again and again, which basically says no more than all is as it should be. All my intelligence must be going to the kid, if I'm becoming so dumb.

Waiting for Raka to come home. I'm sure he needs to know this too. Happy Valentine's day to both the three of us!!!

And huge noisy kisses, major hugs and buckets of love and all that to you too!

Love,

Vidyut

See, what a difference one test can make?

Discovering exhaustion

I've been really out of things since the programme on the 31st. I barely got home and crashed. I slept through most of the next day, waking up feeling like I'd slogged for a full day, and crashing immediately after meals to sleep till the next hunger pangs.

Yesterday wasn't much better. I woke up barely in time to get ready and go to the doctor, at which point I was feeling fine. But the stressful experience tuckered me out completely, and I came back and slept. Woke up, ate slept. And so on.

Today, I'm sitting at the computer as I drink my morning tea, yawning already.

No points for guessing that I'm still tired from the 31st and recovering, but this is all very worrisome for me. I'm usually high energy, and sleeping in the day is an alien concept. Now, I barely wake up. Two hours, and I'm back horizontal.

Oh, the joys of pregnancy!

First Doctor's Visit

I decide on going to Mamta Maternity home.

I've been here once before, when my mother-in-law met the doctor for some breast related problem. I'd accompanied her, and I remember a long wait in an outdoor shaded area with mosquitoes biting me.

I decided to go in the morning to avoid the mosquitoes, and took along something to read.

Raka, my husband came along.

We had called in with an appointment, but it didn't mean much, as we still ended up waiting for an hour and a half after arriving on time.

Patience is not a virtue I have.

The doctors visit was nothing like I imagined. I had fantasies of an attentive, informative doctor, who would be a reassuring presence in my life for the coming months. No such thing happened.

When we went in, the doctor was on the phone, and talking with someone (assistant?) on the side. She nodded at us to sit, and we explained about why we were there, once she finished the call.

I put my test reports in front of her, and she scanned them briefly, giving me the impression that she hadn't expected such an early scan and thought it unnecessary. I felt reprimanded about this initiative, though she didn't really say anything. I had been anxious to 'see', after my earlier miscarriage. I had constant anxiety that something would go wrong.

When I shared this, she nodded absently, while scribbling something on a pad and telling me to go behind the screen for being examined as she reached out to her phone which had started ringing again. My husband was just sitting there, not understanding a thing.

The assistant came around and told me to strip waist down, and I lay on the table covered with a sheet, listening to the doctor on the phone again. From what I could hear, she was probably speaking with a friend/family about something casual. She walked in with the phone still tucked behind her ear, and put on gloves and did a vaginal exam, nodded and walked out. The assistant told me I could put on my clothes again.

Feeling a little lost, as the doctor from my earlier pregnancy had recommended avoiding anything vaginal unless necessary, I did as asked, all the time wondering if it had registered that I had miscarried before.

We came out, and the assistant checked my blood pressure and got in an empty file and put in the sheet the doctor had been writing on.

The doctor then told me to take a folic acid supplement. I replied I was taking Folvite, and she recommended another instead of it, as better. Whatever. She said that she had prescribed another tablet for vaginal use every night. Oooookay....

She turned back to her phone and we were supposedly dismissed. No asking if I had any symptoms, nothing. Mention of my smoking history earned a frown and she said to stop smoking. Duh! Like I hadn't figured out that one myself?

The assistant explained that I should have got some more informative printouts in my file, but someone from their staff had not come in that day, and I should collect them the next time I come.

On my way out, some nurse checked my weight.

That's it. Doctor's visit.

Raka was furious. He had expected more attention, particularly after knowing of the earlier miscarriage. We hadn't really found the doctor wanting to know anything at all about my condition, concerns, or even questions that I may have.

I was lost. I knew exactly as much about my pregnancy as I had while walking in. In fact, my memories of my doctors visit from 2 years ago were more informative than what we had just experienced, and we were utterly disappointed with our experience.

My mother-in-law ws shocked at how negative we were about that doctor, who is considered to be the best in our area. To be honest, there never seemed to be any doubt of her competence. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. The problem was that we didn't know what she was up to vis a vis us.

Perhaps she was just having a bad day, but that didn't reassure us any about putting the fate of our precious one in her hands. Who knew if she was even paying attention to something that might signal a risk?

We had been asked to return after a month with a bunch of results from tests she had recommended, so we decided to look around to see what options we had.