Twinkle twinkle little star...

So Friday was "D day" when I had my first medical appointment and with a bit of luck, would hear my baby's heartbeat for the first time.

My appointment was at 10h20.

10h30 - DF and I arrive at the CLSC (a health center found everywhere in Quebec) and proceed with the registration right after disinfecting our hands with Purell. My file is created, the secretary is fighting with her printer to get my papers ready and after a good 12 minutes we're on our way to the waiting room.

11h20 - The nurse greets us and start asking her questions to fill a few more forms... She then explains some stuff about the prenatest and the next appointments. The only reason I'm not writing back her instructions here is because there was only one thing on my mind at that point: the heart MUST beat. I have no idea what she said but I came out of her office with a book and a few pamphlets so there might be some useful info in there.

12h00ish - We enter the doctor's office. She's super nice and tries to assure me... "If we can't find the heartbeat, don't worry". To this I answered: "Actually, if you don't find the heartbeat, I'll freak out, that's how it works". She smiled and proceeded with the exam.

For starters, she made a comment to the effect that I was a tall well built woman and had the room to carry a large baby... But then noticed my uterus was a bit small - even for a 10 weeks pregnant woman. (Thought to self: but I'm ELEVEN weeks pregnant!!! Eeeeek!!) Then she started looking around with the doppler and was never able to find the heartbeat. I was freaking out and was getting myself ready for a long wait until someone confirms the inevitable: my fetus had stopped growing at 9 weeks.

Why did I freak out? Because in my last pregnancy, in 2005, I was told by the doc at the 7 weeks echography, that I had a nice 5 weeks old embryo, and that took another 2 weeks or so to confirm it was dead. My body had never rejected it on its own and I never lost blood.

As I remembered all of that and got the disgusting feeling that history was repeating itself on me, I realized I started crying in the doctor's office. The doc noticed I was panicking (as I warned I would) and she did the very best she could do under such circumstances: she made a call to the hospital, spoke to the OB/GYN on duty and asked if she could see me right away for a "dating echography". She explained that I would really appreciate if this could be done early in the same day because I badly needed some reassurance. I am very grateful for this extra effort she made.

12h30 - We arrived to St-Hyacinthe's Hospital and started waiting... I guess we were not waiting in the right area because the doc never showed up to see us despite the message delivered by an nurse. We end up changing section and speaking to other nurses about it.

13h30 - A nurse tells me the doc is on her way to the hospital and has to perform a baby delivery before seeing me.

13h35 - DF and I made a trip to the cafeteria to munch on a few fries and yogurt. I really have no appetite.

13h55 - back in the waiting room and falling asleep over my own thoughts... How will I announce the bad news to everyone? Family? Friends? Coworkers?

14h30 - The doc has arrived and get us to the echography room. She is also a very kind and nice young woman who I feel comfortable with. I get on the table, and she proceeds to the echography... I see a baby but I don't care at this point. All I want to see is a flickering heart, THERE IT IS: a small star was twinkling in the middle of my baby stomach. I can't believe it!!!

Now that the heart is beating, I get a better look at the baby and we can count all 4 members. The doc says she saw the bladder but I'll have to take her word for it.

First thought to strike me 10000 miles per hour in the chest: OMG we are really gonna be parents! This is real now!

So the doc further announces that my chances are really good now that everything will be fine. She explained that from the day I found out I was pregnant I had 20% chances of miscarrying, but that hearing or seeing the heartbeat at any point passed 8 weeks reduced the probabilities to 2% only.

I can breathe.

Oh yeah, and with the size of the fetus, she said it was 10 weeks and 5 days and that would made my expected due date June 12th.

15h00 - I went back home with DF and the first picture of our baby to be.