The Start of a Pregnancy - Part 2 - Validation
xielanthia on July 11th, 2008
On the very next Monday I had made an appointment that day with my family doctor. By then I was freaking out because I was having some spotting and I was terrified I was once again having an ectopic pregnancy like I had October of the previous year. I remember sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office just thinking about the possibility of having to have a third surgery in under a years time. What friggin luck, man!! I wasn’t as scared as I was angry. I was downright furious. But I calmed my nerves, took a deep breathe and thought, “I’ve had some bad luck this past year but it is my turn for some good things to happen. Stay positive.” So I put on a brave face as I walked into one of the exam rooms. I sat down and waited for my doctor to arrive.
When she appeared, I expressed my concerns and fears. Being obviously more level headed than I, she said, “Well let’s confirm the pregnancy first. We’ll start with a urine test and go from there.” After I deposited my specimen, I only had to wait a few minutes back in the exam room before my doctor reappeared. “We didn’t even have to wait the full time,” she said, “the test showed you were pregnant almost right away. Congratulations Xie, you are very much pregnant.” My face must have drain of color or something because she pointed out that I didn’t look to happy. Well the truth was I wanted to be but with my past I was afraid. But knowing full and well why I wasn’t jumping up and down for joy, and to my doctors credit, she ordered a blood test to once again confirm the pregnancy, check hormone levels, and also managed to squeeze me in to get an ultrasound that day.
Three hours later and a bladder nearly bursting with the 32oz of water I walked briskly into the local hospital bound for my ultrasound appointment and preregistered. They sent me into a changing room to strip the bottom half of my clothes and put on one of those icky dressing gowns. For fifteen minutes or so I proceeded to pace around the waiting room doing my best not to break out into the pee pee dance. The result turned out to be quite a spectacle I am sure.
By the time the technician arrived and set me up for the ultrasound I was in pure agony. The technician took her own sweet time with the procedure or so it felt like. Every slight pressure from the probe had me cringing. The technician could find nothing through the normal ultrasound probe which she reassured me was normal since the pregnancy was still very early. Since the normal probe found nothing, she informed me we were going to be doing a vaginal ultrasound and sent me off to use the restroom.
Women have to go through some pretty humiliating stuff throughout our lives. The yearly exam to name one and the vaginal ultrasound to name another. I am a very private person. I usually get very uncomfortable from any sort of physical contact form a stranger. Even things as harmless as a hand on my arm. So you can imagine how I felt about this. She checked for a heartbeat. Nothing yet. Thankfully this part was over fairly quickly and after another thirty minutes of waiting while the tech went and asked what they were supposed to do with me now. They ended up sending me home, telling me I should get a call from the doctor in the next few days with the results.
Mid morning the very next day I received a call from my family doctor. She had the results of the blood work and the ultrasound. The blood results confirmed the pregnancy, no red flags there. Good! The ultrasound showed that I might have what is called a uterine septum. To drop the medical mumbo jumbo basically it means there is a piece of tissue divides the uterus in half. Supposedly this shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of women have uterine septums and have a very safe and healthy pregnancy. The ultrasound also showed that I was about four or five weeks pregnant. The fetus was where it was supposed to be. Which meant it was definitely not ectopic. Whoo hoo!!
