The Accidental Mommy, Part 2

Once I (sort of) came to terms with the idea of being pregnant, I started obsessing and really started freaking out.  Everything I knew about childbirth came from listening to people talk about their terrible, painful experiences or watching the women depicted in the media, laying on their backs screaming.  I was determined that when the time came, I wanted to be numb from the neck down.

I reached a defining moment in my desire to be pregnant about 2 weeks after I got that positive pregnancy test.  I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I felt a warm wet gush.  I thought maybe I peed on myself.  I stood up and blood was running down my legs.  It was at that moment that I knew I wanted to be pregnant and was cursing myself for not realizing it immediately.  I started crying.  It was late.  My husband called the after hours nurse line and that's when we were introduced to the callous world of medicine.  The nurse said not to bother going to the hospital, that if I was miscarrying there was nothing they could do.  She said I could come in in the morning and they'd see if I needed a D&C.  Thanks for the hope there, Miss Nurse.  I went to bed, cramping and hemorrhaging, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

When I went to the doctor in the morning, they took my blood and said that my HCG still looked good.  The doctor did an ultrasound, and the baby's heart was still beating strongly.  Seeing that flickering light gave me unimaginable joy.  I had a feeling that my baby was a fighter and knew that everything was going to be okay.  It turns out the bleeding was coming from the vanishing twin.

It was during that visit that my doctor told me he was retiring in 2 weeks and that I needed to find an OB.  That was an adventure.  I spent the next 10 weeks of my pregnancy bouncing from OB practice to OB practice.  So many are run like assembly lines.  I just couldn't get in the groove of 12 or 14 doctor practices.  I got tired of explaining about my early complications and repeating myself.  The final straw for one big practice was when the OB couldn't find the baby's heartbeat using the doppler, looked concerned, said I needed an ultrasound, then left us in a room for over 30 minutes to panic and freak out before coming back in.  So much for a bedside manner...

I went to one of those boutique ultrasound places at 18 weeks to get an early peek at the baby's gender.  The tech was very nice, the facility was great, and I was so excited.  She told me I was having a boy and gave us pictures and a DVD with boy parts labels.  We went out and bought all sorts of blue clothes and started talking about boy names.

At my 20 week anatomy ultrasound at the hospital, the tech came in and asked me what I thought I was having.  I smiled at her and said:  I'm having a boy!  Within 2 minutes, she laughed and said, honey...that's a girl.  I'd gotten attached to the idea of having a boy and almost burst into tears in the room.  I held off until we got to the car, then I started crying.  I called my dad and again, he laughed.  He told me that girls were awesome.  I told him he was biased.  It turns out, he was right.