Twins… Maybe!

Wow. It still hasn’t really sunk in yet.

I did my best to distract myself this morning since it was an afternoon appointment and I couldn’t bear to think about it. My stomach was really messed up despite my attempts at distraction. My guts knew what was at stake even if my mind was diverted.

I sat in the waiting room of the freestanding imaging clinic for what seemed like half an hour, only to look at my phone and realize only four minutes had passed.

Mercifully I didn’t have to wait too much longer to be called into my appointment with a blonde ultrasound tech who looked younger than me. I told her we’d been trying for four years with two losses, just so she’d have some context. It didn’t seem to faze her.

They’d asked me to fill my bladder, which I didn’t realize was a prelude to an abdominal ultrasound. I just assumed it would be transvag. She said if she couldn’t visualize things well enough through the abdomen, she’d switch it up.

The warmed gel was put on my belly, then she kind of waved the wand across my abdomen offhand-like, and when she did, I thought I caught a glimpse of two sacs with two little beans right where they were supposed to be. The sacs didn’t look misshapen or empty or full of detritus. They looked normal. Healthy.

“Is that… do they look good?” I asked.

“I can’t really tell you anything,” she said impassively. “The doctors have to look at it.”

“I know, but… they look OK, right?”

“I can’t really tell you anything.”

As you can imagine, this conversation repeated itself more than twice. I know techs are just supposed to measure and make reports, not diagnose anything, but I kind of wanted to knock her in the head. Still, I felt profound relief setting in, especially when I saw that both blobs had wee little flickering heartbeats. I had never seen that before, at least not in my uterus. Knowing that it was even possible was such a relief.

She was kind enough to let me know the heart rate of one of them. 167. Maybe a little fast, but that’s better than a little slow. The other one was hugging the side of its sac too much, so she couldn’t get a good measurement.

(The opposite happened to a friend of mine recently. Her doc couldn’t get a good measurement transvaginally — in fact, couldn’t see an embryo at all — so he switched to abdominal, and the baby and its heartbeat measured perfectly. Which is unusual, because transvag is normally more accurate.)

My ultrasound tech poked and prodded and measured this and that without saying a word for what seemed like a very long time. Occasionally I’d catch another glimpse of an almost baby-looking blob and its little heart beating away, and my heart would swell. But she kept moving so fast I could barely focus on anything before she’d moved on.

I just wanted to empty my bursting bladder and call my husband so he could feel the intense relief I was feeling. But then she wanted to switch to transvag to measure the heart rate of the other one. I told her I didn’t want to subject them to any more poking, prodding, or ultrasound waves. I had all the info I needed (which was to continue taking my meds and continue monitoring the pregnancy), and I had another ultrasound in ten days at the OB already scheduled. (I was also just kind of sick of that tech and didn’t feel like going to third base with her.) She reluctantly let me beg off. If anyone down the line doesn’t like it, they can call the Pamela’s Body Complaint Department at 1 800 NUNYA BIZ.

The other little one is there and has a good heart rate or it doesn’t. I’ll know soon enough. For now just seeing it was enough, without subjecting it to any more potential stress just for my own marginal peace of mind. For now everything feels like it’s all right, and for now that’s more than enough for me.

It’s just such a relief since we haven’t known anything since the two beta hCG numbers, and just two numbers tell so little of the story. It could have been ectopic, it could have been molar, it could have been a missed miscarriage or another blighted ovum. Less likely with good numbers, but entirely possible. And, of course, it could have been one or two. And we were hoping so much for two.

I called Ahmed absolutely giddy to be giving him good news over the phone, FOR ONCE. He was as over the moon as I was.

When I got in the car and turned on the radio, Alive and Kicking by Simple Minds was playing. 🙂 I was starving since I could barely eat this morning, and I treated myself to hot and sour soup and non-raw sushi (lobster mango roll) at Sushi Hana to celebrate.

So. Wow. We might actually be parents this time.

We’re most certainly not out of any woods yet. The docs haven’t even called to confirm my amateur opinion that everything’s fine. But we’re further into the woods than we’ve ever been. Just seeing a strong, swift heartbeat was such a miracle.

Maybe my uterus is not an embryo Death Star after all. Maybe I did just need to find the right embryos, like my doctor said.

And maybe these are the right embryos.

I’m allowing myself a little bit of joy and hope today, a tiny little break from endless anxiety. It’s nice.

UPDATE: Doc called and confirmed that everything looks great. Looking forward to my first honest-to-God OB appointment next week!

P.S. This is not my actual ultrasound pic — my ultrasound tech kind of blew off my request for pictues, saying they weren’t really cute or anything, and I was too wired to argue — but it’s the closest I could find on the interwebz.