Tony took a half day off from work to make sure that he was available for our anatomy ultrasound at 20 weeks. I am always more relaxed and optimistic when he is by my side, so I was feeling pretty good going into our appointment. The scan was first. I can’t even begin to put into words what it was like to see our baby girl moving and kicking. Her sweet little profile, button nose and beautiful little lips were clear as day, and as reassuring as her beating little heart. Tony had a firm hold of my hand as I began to pose the series of questions that any NICU nurse would want to know. “Does her heart have 4 chambers? Is her skull intact? Does she have 10 fingers and 10 toes? Is her spinal cord concealed? Is her diaphragm intact? What do you see in her stomach? Is she actually a girl for sure?” The ultrasound tech was lovely and spoke to me in medical jargon that then we both translated for Tony. The bottom line? Baby girl got a squeaky clean bill of health. Praise God. She was measuring exactly 20 weeks to the day, and looked amazing. We were both in awe and felt so grateful to be where we were, looking at our healthy little girl.
We then met with my doctor where I grilled her about delivery options. How long would she let me go past my due date? Did she use vacuums often? (I will get on my NICU soap box for a few moments and say that there is no way in Hell that any OB is coming near my baby’s head with a vacuum. I have seen too many brain, shoulder and nerve injuries when they are used incorrectly. Most times, if the baby hasn’t come out on its own, there is a reason for it. Something is stuck and putting a vacuum on the baby’s head to try to get it “unstuck” sometimes only causes trauma to the baby’s brain. NO THANK YOU. I will volunteer for a C-section ANY day. Anything to get my little girl out safely. End of soap box.) Does she do routine episiotomies? She handled my questions better than I expected her to, and said the things that I wanted to hear.
Still, I’m not sure that is the OB who I want to deliver me. Sure, she stays up on her research and has over 20 years of non-vaccuming experience, but something just feels off. She is in a group of doctors, any of whom could deliver our baby yet I have only met her. I have talked with a few labor nurses at my hospital and the things that I’ve heard from them are things like, “oh, she’s been here a long time,” or “oh she says some really interesting things at deliveries.” NOT exactly the words that you want to hear. Not a single person has said, “oh she’s amazing.” So my unease continues, and is currently fighting with my desire to avoid being “that person” who switches OB’s mid pregnancy.
Our ultrasound was on Halloween, so Tony and I went home and got ready to hand out candy to the kiddos. I dressed my bump up as a snow man, and Tony wore his favorite footed pajamas with penguins on them. We had more than enough Costco candy to hand out, and a turkey chili simmering in the crockpot. Halloween is not my favorite holiday, but it was such a fun day, filled with good news and so much hope! For that day, things were better than okay. Our rainbow girl is still thriving and we are so blessed.
OUR ANNOUCEMENT:
I have always felt funny about the thought of announcing our pregnancy on social media. It pained me to see so many others announcing their pregnancies when we were struggling to conceive after our miscarriages. But I wanted to give others like me HOPE that it could happen, and honestly? I needed to give myself some reassurance- a semblance of reality that this was going to happen for us. I needed to believe that this pregnancy wasn’t going to end in disaster, but that we would get to take home a baby girl next March. So the announcement became more important for myself than I thought. And so it was, with the millions of women struggling with infertility, miscarriage and loss on my mind, I paid tribute to the pain that molded us, gave us longing and forced us to HOPE beyond all the doubt by announcing our sweet baby girl’s existence to social media. The responses we received on each of our posts (Tony did a separate one that was utterly amazing) were absolutely uplifting. So many people reached out, offered up prayers, sent words of encouragement and filled us with HOPE and JOY that day. It was one of the best days ever!
What does 20 weeks mean to me? Wow. We are halfway there. Halfway to our wishes coming true. Halfway to taking home a tiny human that we are solely responsible for. Halfway there till labor. Halfway to our world being turned upside down, for better or worse. She is well on her way to being in our arms! Mantra of this point in the pregnancy still is “grateful for each day,” but now it’s also “grateful for a HEALTHY baby girl!”
