Mysteries

How does Rose DO this?

Poor little Bink! Rose seems to be exploring her physical limits these days. I think she found at least one this week. Rose has had 3 black eyes in the past few months and they have all been self-inflicted. This week’s model came from Rose twirling around until she got dizzy and stumbled cheek first into the coffee table. OW! she hit her cheek down where that little mark is, and the bruise traveled up to make her biggest shiner yet.

The good thing about Rose is she never lets anything get her down for long (ok, this is a fake smile, but you know what I mean. Rose is just naturally happy).

I am trying to follow Rose’s example right now—not the black eye, the cheerfulness.

On Thursday I had a doctor appointment. Dr. Weaver smooshed around my tummy for 10 solid minutes with the doppler heartbeat detector with no luck. He put it away and said “ultrasound time!” and sent me off to the hospital. The ultrasound showed a sac there with nothing inside it. They even did an internal ultrasound. Nada. No heartbeat or little baby-blob was visible. Yikes. I began to get very nervous. Dr. W sent me off to Yakima for a second ultrasound with a better machine and tech. Jeff drove me there while Steph watched Jay and Rose. After another external and internal ultrasound, we had the same results: EMPTY.

Dr. Weaver and his consultants were rather mystified by these results for a few reasons: 5 weeks ago I had an ultrasound and we heard a heart beating away in there just fine. If there hadn’t been a heartbeat way back then, they’d just call this a blighted ovum and miscarriage. But since there was a heartbeat 5 weeks ago, nobody knows why there was nothing visible or audible this week. I haven’t had any signs of miscarriage. The only possible sign is that I’ve started feeling a little bit better, but that’s not a very reliable gauge because I’m not all the way better—I did stop taking my puke-free pills on Friday, but I’ve still barfed for the past 2 mornings. Dr. Weaver said it was possible that there is still some life in there, and that it’s just too small to see. So the plan of action is my favorite patience test: wait and see. I have an appointment in 2 weeks to check things again.

Arrr! I will admit to shedding plenty of tears over this horrible dilemma. And most of the tears were completely selfish. It has always been one of my top pregnancy fears to go through the deadly sick phase and THEN have a miscarriage. It just seems SO stinking unfair! Yes, not having a baby is also very sad, but during the first trimester I rarely care about the end because I’m just too sick to care about anything. My mind does take comfort from the idea that all this sickness will give me a cute little drooly squishy reward, but mostly I just feel sick and ignore everything. So to suddenly emerge from the haze to the very distinct possibility of NO BABY-Reward, is even less fun than being sick.

We spend lots of time all crammed into my recliner together. Reading books or watching shows.

Waiting to know the verdict is hard because I still feel pretty yucky. It’s nice to be off the Zofran medicine, but I still feel nauseous all day long, with an a.m. heave. I still HATE food except for plain muffins with butter. My body is still underweight and my muscles are atrophied and weak. I’m still an invalid, but I may or may not be a pregnant invalid. Mentally it’s harder for me to lay around doing nothing all day if I’m not 100% pregnant, even though I can’t physically do much right now anyway. Arrr!

IF we ever have a 3rd child, these group photos are going to get even harder than they already are!

Ok, that’s the whole mysterious story. I do have a small hope that this will all still end with a fuzzy little baby, but it’s almost more than I can bear to hope too much, you know? I don’t want to feel the pain of LOSS again! Sigh. But all the crazy stories I’ve heard and read  tell me that anything goes when it comes to pregnancy. So I hope. Jeff hopes. Jay and Rose keep playing. And the days take a little bit longer to pass.