And then, there was one...

My little guy didn’t make it. I went to my first OB appointment and the ultrasound showed one very healthy fetus measuring 10 weeks with a heartbeat of 173 bpm, and one very small fetus/embryo measuring only 8 weeks with no heartbeat. It was sad, but honestly, I think I mourned his loss the first day when the doctor told me he probably wouldn’t make it. I almost felt some closure with the discovery of no heartbeat. We are no longer in limbo wondering how many babies we will have. The other thing that has me relieved is that after researching vanishing twin syndrome (which is what this is), I found that it can be very dangerous for the other baby if it happens later in the pregnancy. The body can try to expel the “material” because it’s much larger. All along my goal was one healthy baby. We obviously wanted both babies once we saw them, but one baby will be easier in many ways. I do really wish I could have banged out a whole family in one fell swoop, but it didn’t happen. I’m still very pregnant with a healthy, squirming, beautiful baby, so I’m dedicated to focusing on that.

Everything else about my OB appointment was surprisingly underwhelming (they treated me like all they see all day long are pregnant women). I did have to wait in the lab for quite a while for the “expert blood girl” to come in and draw my blood from my hand since my good vein has been tapped so many times, anyone less than a complete expert fails to get it to work. My OB’s office is “wallpapered” in pictures of her with newborn babies and moms. This pattern goes on throughout many of the rooms. As I was waiting for the expert blood girl, I was glancing around at these pictures and all of a sudden I began to feel kind of scared. I have spent the last several years concerning myself with getting pregnant. Now that I am pregnant, I have to actually deliver this baby! I don’t know why this didn’t really occur to me before, but it is a little concerning for me now.

My emotional state has been much more accepting of the fact that I’m actually pregnant. I still have times where a couple of hours go by, and I don’t feel my ever-present friend, nausea, and it starts to seem impossible that there is a human being the size of a lime or a prune or whatever, with a beating heart and arms and legs, and maybe even fingernails, attached to my uterus and growing inside me! I have my moments of doubt, and I so wish I had an ultrasound machine at home to peek in on the little one whenever I was having a weak moment, but generally, I’m starting to accept that I may actually be nurturing a real human life in there.

I will have to tell my boss about the pregnancy in the next 2 weeks but that seems crazy to me as well. It is wonderful to me that I’m 10 weeks into this, but it is still so delicate. I don’t really want to come out yet. I have no choice though. My current job is that of an executive assistant/project manager. This type of job lends itself to a fairly close personal relationship with the executive you are supporting. My comings and goings are very obvious to him due to the role I play in his work life. During my fresh cycle in August, he totally guessed what I was doing (he and his wife did IVF 8 years ago, so he knew what to look for), but I wasn’t about to tell him, so I conceded that we were having difficulties conceiving, but we were hoping to avoid IVF (what???). I told him I was having a laparoscopy for endo (this is a true story, but it happened in 2008, I have no idea what I was thinking telling him this). I should never have lied, I should have just told him or found a way to nicely tell him I didn’t want to discuss it, but I was a deer in headlights and the lap story just poured out. In retrospect, it may have been an awkward conversation had I actually become pregnant during that cycle. Anyway, this time, I was able to keep the frozen cycle from him by taking personal time instead of medical time on the day of the transfer, and the ultrasound appointments. This was easier since there was no ambiguity about when this would all occur, I knew the transfer date weeks in advance.

Well, he’s onto me again because after only two doctor’s appointments (one week apart) he asked if these doctor appointments were related to becoming pregnant. I cautiously told him that yes, they were related to that. He then asked me if I would need time off to do fertility treatments and I told him I would know more in the upcoming weeks. I can’t outright lie to him, obviously, but I wasn’t ready to tell him during that conversation. I was only 7 weeks and hadn’t seen the heartbeat yet. It might have been a pointless conversation. Well, I have an infusion next week, an appointment with the high risk specialist (for my “advanced maternal age”…nice) on the 24th and an appointment with the OB on the 26th. He will definitely be wondering what’s going on. I’m thinking it might just be easiest to come clean next week before my infusion appointment. I hate to do it this early, but if something happened to the baby at this stage, I would definitely need some time off, either for a medical procedure or for just emotional time. I can certainly trust him to keep this confidential from other co-workers until I feel more comfortable.

The thing that’s going to give me away is my belly! I don’t know if the growth of the belly will slow since I only have one baby actually growing in there now, but I’m already pushing the limit in all my work pants, and I’m down to only one pair of jeans that I can button, and they were previously too big for me. I love the changing body, it’s so exciting. It’s just another exciting part of this journey. I cannot wait to have a cute little basketball tummy (I’m hoping it goes that route, and not the massive beach ball look).

That's it for now...