Ultrasound

My mother-in-law offered to drive us to Boise, which was really nice. I had intentionally scheduled the visit after school got out so that Brian could come too.

We were worried that we had a dead baby or a miscarriage, but I still felt like puking all the time so maybe that was a good sign? We ran endless scenarios of how this ultrasound would play out.

We went to the clinic and got set up. I was once again in the stirrups, but this time the stakes seemed so much higher. Then the ultrasound tech did that thing that freaks you out: she started scanning and then switched screens suddenly, clicking lots of buttons and looking concerned.

“Can we tell is something is wrong?”

“Well... let me tell you what I see.”

“Here are the two embryos that you implanted (TWO!!!). And here is where one of them split. These are identical twins and this other one is a fraternal. There are three.”

THREE.

As in, triplets. 

Tres.      Trois.    Tri.         Tre.       III. 

…

The Hardest Night

A few days prior to our first ultrasound I started spotting late one evening. I had very painful cramps and then I started bleeding. 

And crying.

We were terrified. We called the clinic’s emergency number and phoned a medical friend. I stayed on the couch, drank a lot of liquids, and tried to relax. Yeah right.

They told us that if I started bleeding heavily to go to the ER immediately to make sure that I did not have an ectopic pregnancy. A small chance apparently, but one that could cause me to bleed to death. If I continued to have bleeding or cramping I should go in to the ER to have an ultrasound. If not, I just needed to take it easy and wait the few days until our appointment at the clinic.

I took it easy and the bleeding stopped. But we were scared. It was a long night and an even longer few days.

Oh, the sickness

Almost immediately after transfer, and especially during the bout with cellulitis, I was exhausted all the time. I was still teaching of course, and the end of the year is always tiring anyway. But I felt like I got hit by a bus. And then backed over. Again. And again. 

I was too tired to cook, to clean, to function. At the end of the school day, it was all I could do not to sob from sheer exhaustion. 

Well, maybe I did that too. My poor husband. Where was the glowing, happy pregnant lady? Yeah, she is passed out on the couch. 

The other wonderful realities of pregnancy had also hit me. I had to pee all the time. Oh my goodness! I thought that happened waaaaayyy later! Like third trimester there is a kid stomping on your bladder of course you have to pee all the time! I usually sleep like the dead, but suddenly I am awake three times a night to use the bathroom. 

On a more painful note, my breasts became two objects whose sole purpose in life was to make me miserable. Even gravity hurts. 

Whine. I know.

At six weeks along, I almost instantly traded tired for nauseous. I still felt tired sometimes, but the extreme fatigue had faded away and given leave to something much worse. Food became the enemy. Eating sounded horrible, but if I got hungry, I started to throw up.

Lovely. 

We ate out a lot for those two weeks at the end of the school year. The idea of cooking food made me feel wretched, but I needed to eat something. One day one thing sounded good, but the next day it was something different. 

I am still struggling. Some days I am throwing up all the time, food or not. 

My pharmacist told me something funny: He said that he would rather be in pain than feel nauseous. He said he would rather snap his femur in half than feel nauseous for months on end. 

That’s one way to put it.