Phew 2: Ultrasound Boogaloo

7-17-09

I awake at 3:50 a.m. for the last of my three middle-o’-the-night potty breaks. (After traversing the length of the house in the dead of night thrice nightly, I now appreciate why a bathroom in the master bed is a smashing idea.) I return to bed and assume my favored and short-lived sleeping position, on my stomach. I close my eyes and there he is: Dr. #2 in the Audrey Hepburn ultrasound room, “I’m sorry, things are not going well.” Shit. The ghosts of ultrasounds past have been visiting me the past few days and this morning they are relentless. I flip over and breathe into my belly (Yoga breathing! Yoga breathing!!), but it’s no use. I’m awake. Thank g-d I only have another hour to wait until the alarm sounds.

Then yoga, which pushes back the clamoring thoughts. Lucky for me my yoga teacher decides today is the day that he’ll focus in on the weaknesses in my chaturanga dandasana to upward dog transition. Yay? At least his focus on my asanas lets my mind go to the “please leave me alone, hard yoga teacher” place instead of thinking of the doomed scenarios that could result from this afternoon’s ultrasound. When I say good-bye to my teacher and yoga pals, I leave out my usual “See you tomorrow” in case I don’t.

Work carries me along on its tide of to-dos although I can barely concentrate. I surf the web in search of distraction. Thank you, dlisted.com. I lunch with my pal, Naomi, and am so so happy to talk about the happenings in her life instead of mine. I sum up my day with, “It’s nerve-wracking and scary, but what can you do?”

2:30 rolls around. I go to unlock my bike and find that another bike is wedged in against mine, making it impossible to remove my bike without some serious wrangling. “Thanks, asshole. Maybe try not being a total fuckwad next time,” I say loudly. I glance at the parking attendant’s station. Not there. Good. I’ll be the crazy lady who talks to herself soon enough around these parts, but I try to keep a decent rep while I can. Finally I extract my bike, reconnect my brake cable, which my removal gymnastics had pulled loose, and kick the tire of the offending bike. “Fucker.” Misplaced aggression anyone?

Mr. Crud rolls into the loading lane and packs me and my banged up chariot into the car.

“You okay?” He asks.

“I think so.”

We kiss and head up to the Perinatology Center on the hill.

“I wonder if they brought Audrey with them from the other office,” I say.

“I hope not.”

After a short wait, Super Tall Ultrasound Dude (STUD) from our first ultrasound of doom appears in the door. “Katherine?” (I do mean super tall—he’s easily 6’6”*.)

We stand up. Shit. Did it have to be him again? I wonder if he is praying almost as hard as we are that everything is normal, that he doesn’t have to use his prepared bad news speech (“I’m not seeing what I expect here. I’ll be back with the doctor.”) a second time.

“How are things going?” He asks as I lay down on the table.

“So far so good,” I say.

“We met about a year ago, right?” He says.

“Yep,” I say, fighting the urge to add “on one of the worst days of my life in fact.”

“You’ve had 2 losses, correct?” He says as he flips on the machine and grabs the warm goo for my belly.

“Yes.”

“I bet you’re feeling pretty anxious.”

“Oh yes,” I say. Understatement of the year. I’m surprised that I haven’t crapped my pants to be honest.

I roll down the waistband of my pants. He tucks in the towel and covers my potbelly with goo. This time I don’t look away from the screen but stare head-on. Come on, Purvis. You were here just 2 weeks ago. Don’t let me down.

He rubs the sensor over my belly and finds what he’s looking for. “Things look good,” he says quickly.

“Thank you,” I say.

As he moves the sensor around, finding Purvis’ body: arms, legs (crossed at the ankle), head, heartbeat and various markers of an 11-week ultrasound, he clicks pictures and reassures me. “Everything looks normal.”

“Thank you,” I say every time. Thank you, G-d. Thank you, STUD, for telling me over and over again and not letting me stew in my fear.

With each new find, he says “This is your baby’s head. This is your baby’s heart. This is your baby’s arms.” The phrase “your baby” somehow makes me feel warm and happy and freaked out. Purvis is a baby now. Not an embryo or fetus. Baby. I feel like I am entering dangerous territory: hope, attachment, and love.

“I need to shift your position. Your baby isn’t in a good position for me to get the measurement we need.” STUD says. He tilts the bed down.

“I do yoga. I can go upside down if you need.” Finally a chance to use my yoga powers in public!

He laughs. “I think this ought to do it.”

It doesn’t. He puts me on my side, jiggles the wand around in my pelvis. “Nope, your baby is happy where he is.”

The fear creeps back in. Why isn’t he doing what STUD wants? Is something wrong? STUD senses my freak out to be and says, “Everything looks normal. I’m just trying to get a better picture for the measurement that we need.”

He leaves Mr. Crud and I alone to wait for the doctor and to see if Purvis will get into the necessary position if I rest on my side a moment.

“I wonder if it will be one of the previous doctors,” I say.

“Accent Man or Nice Jewish Lady?” Mr. Crud asks.

“They were both good,” I say.

A new doctor whose name is also Kt enters and gives us the lowdown. Everything looks good and normal, all the markers check out. The measurement that they got of Purvis’ neck is normal too and when the results of my blood test come back, we’ll have an even better idea of our chances for genetic abnormalities. I feel weird doing these tests although I was sure from the get-go that I wanted them. I don’t know what we’ll do if we are faced with a genetically abnormal baby. I used to think that I knew, but I know enough now to know what I don’t know. (A tongue twister to keep things light, alright?) For now we will wait for the blood test results before deciding if we’ll do further diagnostic testing such as amniocentesis, which carries a small risk of miscarriage. Dr. Kt says this is what most couples do.

Again she tries to coax Purvis into a more photogenic position and again she fails so the dreaded transvaginal ultrasound is invoked.

“I’d hoped to avoid this, but I guess that’s how it goes,” I say.

Dr. Kt leaves the room and I strip from the waist down.

“Does that include my shoes?” I ask Mr. Crud. “I never know if I should leave my shoes on.”

“She said waist down.” He says with a shrug.

Dr. Kt and STUD return. This time they get the shot they need. Everything still looks good. I wonder if Purvis got his workout from my morning of yoga, if she is doing spins and turns along with me in the morning and this is her nap time.

STUD gives us a CD of some choice photos of Purvis and we are on our way.

“I’m not quite sure what to do with good news,” Mr. Crud says.

“I know. I had already starting preparing for the bad,” I say.

We are both exhausted, but not too tired to call the essential parties and share the news. Mr. Crud sends the best shot of Purvis to our close family members and we smile at their joyful replies.

“You’re not going to make that picture your wallpaper, are you?” I ask.

“No. Are you?”

“No. Something about that creeps me out,” I say.

“I wonder if I’ll be the type of person who has pictures of their kids on their wallpaper,” he says.

I know I’ve said some variation of this a gajillion times, but golly, I hope we find out.


* Did I just make the same error as Spinal Tap in the Stonehenge debacle?