Whiplash

So Greta's got this little thing in her that looks like a crawfish.

Greta took a home pregnancy test on May 10th, even though her Aunt Flo wasn't due for another day or two, because she remembered that we had, uh, "had relations" about fourteen days earlier. For those of you to whom this process is mysterious, that's right about the time that an egg would have come a-rollin' down one of her fallopian chutes, and then lurked about waiting to be assaulted by frantic sperms.

This was probably the hundredth pee-stick test that Greta had taken in the past year and a half, but the first in several months, because we had "stopped trying" for a while. "Trying" had proved too stressful and depressing, since it involved charting Greta's basal temperature, having sex-on-demand, checking cervical mucus, and innumerable pee-stick tests. These tasks are every bit as romantic as they sound.

This time, for only the second time ever, Greta's wee caused two parallel lines to appear on the peestick (the other time, almost a year ago, it turned out to be a defective test -- those bastards!). So she went to see her gynecologist on the 11th, and a blood test revealed that her bloodstream was teeming with pregnancy hormones. For the next two weeks, our conversations tended to run on one of three tracks:
- A cute little baby! We're going have a cute little baby!
- Our lives are over.
- Greta: I'm going to get really fat. Jim: For God's sake, shut up.

Actually, the crawfish picture is what the embryo looked like a couple of weeks ago, when things started to get extra-interesting. On our third wedding anniversary, Greta bled heavily for a few hours -- a terrifying experience. The next day, we went to see her OB/GYN -- a cheery fellow named James Wong -- again, and he did an intra-vaginal ultrasound. This is a procedure involving a small video monitor, a giant plastic dildo, a keyboard, and green goo. I would prefer not to describe it in any more detail.

I was standing at Greta's head (Dr. Wong was crouched elsewhere), leaning over her, peering at the monitor. Our child was visible as a vague, fuzzy, oblong cloud, and Dr. Wong informed us that a single, flickering pixel was its heartbeat. This, to me, was magical. Less magical was Dr. Wong telling us that he couldn't see the yolk sac, which feeds the embryo until the placenta forms, and is one of the many slimy, pulsating aspects of the miracle of biological life. He said that, based on the bleeding and the lack of yolk-sac visibility, he believed that the pregnancy was most likely not viable. Anything is possible, he added, but Greta should prepare herself for a miscarriage, which would likely be quite painful and last a day or two.

This is a little like being told, "I'm not completely sure, but someone's probably going to punch you in the face sometime in the next couple of weeks. Really hard." This tended to make the following week extremely stressful. Dr. Wong had scheduled us for another ultrasound on June 15th, but after a few days of hellish adjustment to the idea that we weren't going to have a cute little baby after all, Greta called and changed the appointment to June 8th (this past Thursday).

This time, we were expecting to see no more flickering pixel, and we were even prepared to hear Dr. Wong recommend a D&C. Instead, his magical electronic wand revealed a stronger heartbeat, an embryo that had grown to just the right size for eight weeks, and a clearly-visible yolk sac. "Perhaps it was obscured by something last time," said Dr. Wong cheerfully. Like, how much stuff is in a uterus anyway? Was the yolk sac hiding behind a sofa in there? In any case, it doesn't really matter: the verdict was, everything looked as it should. I felt an unexpected wave of relief (unexpected because I had convinced myself that I was fine with not having a baby), and tears came to my eyes. Then I remembered that I am a man and got ahold of myself. "I'll get out of your vagina now," said Dr. Wong. As he peeled off his gloves, he told us, "You're not out of the woods yet." He's still concerned about the fact that Greta bled that one day, so he wants us to keep coming back for weekly ultrasounds for a while. He also forbade us to have sex, which seems pretty unfair, considering what he's doing with that ultrasound wand.

This morning, I dusted off the stack of neglected pregnancy books that we had purchased a few weeks back, and began to try to get used to the idea of impending fatherhood once again. No doubt there will be plenty more opportunities for panic in the next seven months, but whatever happens, we'll get through it together. In the meantime, though, Greta feels nauseous all the time, and is living on breakfast cereal and Annie's Mac & Cheese.






PS: Because of the references to what she calls "her personal anatomy", Greta would like it known that she did not contribute to this entry. Hopefully she will soon be making G-rated entries of her own ...