October 22, 2015 "Oh Dear"

Alternate Title:  Worst Day, #1

On January 1, 2015 I decided this was going to be a great year, and only I could make it a great year.  I needed to look for the good things that happened each week.  I had found an idea on pinterest where you write down the best thing of the week and keep it in a jar/box to read on December 31st. Loved this idea, forced me to look for the good things each week.  Although I had decided this year would be hard to top: wedding, honeymoon to Paris, getting pregnant...

On October 22nd, 2015 I stopped writing my weekly good things for months, I couldn't think of any good things after that day for weeks.

I was so excited for our first 9 week appointment.  I had been having many pregnancy signs, morning sickness had recently started, I was peeing a lot, I had an elevated heart rate, all good signs.  We met with our nurse practitioner, who I came to adore over our next few visits.  We did all the fun first exams:  internal manual exam and then the awesome wand.  As she was looking at the monitor she asked my husband to press the blue call button.  When I asked why she said she wanted a doctor to come in and look to verify what she was seeing.  She told me that the embryo was measuring small in comparison to what I thought my conception date was.  When the doctor arrived our NP explained the situation and I will never forget what the doctor said, she looked at the monitor, looked at me and said "oh dear."  Although I was at 9 weeks, the embryo only measured 6 weeks and 4 days.

My husband, who was pre-med and is fascinated by medicine, began asking questions:  how can we be certain, how do we know development stopped, is there a possiblity it just measures small?  We didn't want to make any decisions until we were certain it was not a viable pregnancy.  I went in for a blood test and then took another one 48 hours later.  They were watching my HCG levels:  in a good pregnancy they should double, in a failed pregnancy they would drop.  I had to wait over the weekend, such a long wait.  In the meantime I was supposed to go meet my friend's newborn 2nd son, I cancelled, I just couldn't.  I sat around waiting for Monday to arrive.

~CP