Our Little Scare

This pregnancy has gone by extremely fast. Too fast.

I feel like my husband and I just found out that we were pregnant and now I am approximately three weeks away from welcoming our precious son into this world.

For the most part, this pregnancy has been smooth sailing, just like the last. We did have a scare in the beginning though.

As I have mentioned before, when my husband and I discovered that we were expecting, we celebrated with an US Weekly and ice cream. Our family was turning into a table for four.

One of the first things I did the day after finding out was call the doctor to set up a “confirmation” appointment. We got right in and saw the doctor two days later to confirm that yes, we were indeed pregnant. I then requested an ultrasound to see exactly how far along I was. I wanted this because with Gwyneth, we ended up being three weeks ahead of where we thought, so I just wanted to be sure. Two days later and I was laying on the table, covered in goop with the ultrasound technician scanning my belly for our baby.

It didn’t take us long to realize there was a problem. The technician couldn’t locate the gestational sac. She wasn’t saying much, either. The longer she searched in silence, the more tears streamed down my face. She then turned off the machine and went to get our doctor.

My heart stopped. Where was my baby!?

The doctor reviewed the technician’s photos and walked into the room. She then told us that I most likely either had an Ectopic pregnancy, which means the fertilized egg was growing somewhere outside of my uterus, most likely in a fallopian tube.  This meant I would need surgery right away to remove the egg. If not an Ectopic pregnancy, then it might be a Molar pregnancy, which is when tissue that normally develops into a fetus becomes an abnormal growth, but still gives off symptoms of pregnancy. It also isn’t recommended that twomen get pregnant for A YEAR after a molar pregnancy. Either way, there is no baby from either of these options, which sent me into a breakdown of tears.

Although I was only five weeks along, the thought of losing my baby was devastating. Something I didn’t even know I had a week ago was now gone.

My husband, though, kept an optimistic attitude the whole time, and asked the doctor if there was a possibility that I was just earlier than we thought, which would explain not being able to locate a sac yet. While the idea wasn’t completely shot down, it wasn’t likely since the home pregnancy tests confirmed the pregnancy, and those don’t detect the hormones much earlier.

More tears.

I was then instructed to go to the hospital to have blood drawn every two days for a week. If this pregnancy was on track, then my hormone levels should be doubling every two days. I was an absolute mess the entire week. But, my husband kept me from spiraling out of control and kept the possibility of a viable pregnancy in the air.

A week later, I was notified that yes, they WERE in fact doubling! This was a great sign! I was then given another ultrasound and there WAS a sac!!

More tears. And more tears. And even more tears. But these were tears of joy. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted this baby until it was almost taken away from me.

It did, in fact, turn out that I was 2-3 weeks earlier than we thought and the sac hadn’t had time to fully develop yet. The doctor couldn’t really explain it, and neither could we, but we weren’t out to ask many questions. We were just ecstatic and overjoyed that our little baby was continuing to grow.

And now our Little Man is about to be born. I tear up at the mere thought of holding him in my arms; thanking God for blessing us with a healthy little boy.

We are beyond lucky. I know this.

And I am incredibly thankful.