The First Ultrasound – Recap

I almost had a heart attack at our first ultrasound with the twins (how crazy to even get to type “twins”…!!!).

We got to town extra early, so we were at the doctor’s office about 30 minutes before the appointment time.  When I stepped into the office, my first impression was, Wow, this place is very nice.  The OB practice looks nicer than many practices that I’ve been to in the Bay Area.  The receptionist greeted us and gave Annie an iPad to sign in.  We don’t even use iPads here at any of the OB offices or IVF clinics that I’ve been to here.  That was a surprise.

I asked Annie if she felt nervous.  She was actually not nervous at all.  She was feeling excited and just wanted to get the scan done soon to see what we had inside.  But I was nervous.  I’d say 90% of me believed that we would be able to see a heartbeat, but there was 10% of me that was anxious and thought the worst.  You know how that goes.

We were there with Annie, Kenneth, and their two younger kids.  I sat way far from everybody.  Somehow I felt that I needed some space from everyone so I could stay calm.

When the nurse came out to get us, we all stood up.  That apparently threw her off as she didn’t know who all these people were.  She guaranteed that everybody would be able to go in for the scan, but for the first part of the appointment she only had two seats for our group.  Annie indicated that she wanted me to be with her.

We were led to a tiny area with two chairs.  The nurse was training someone else.  We sat down while she typed in her laptop with the information that we told her.  I don’t think she knew who I was.  Annie just answered whatever questions the nurse had for her.  Then the nurse said at one point to Annie, Your husband had a vasectomy….? alluding to the fact that it didn’t quite make sense for Annie to be currently pregnant while her husband’s sper.m supply had been cut off.  At that point, I knew that she was very confused about the situation.  We had to quickly clarify the situation, that Annie was my gestational carrier and I was the mother.  So once that was explained, we went on to deal with last menstrual period.  The nurse asked when it was.  Annie was like… Uh 6 months ago?  I don’t think the nurse knew much about IVF.  She said she had never had a patient who came in who did IVF, so there was no button on her screen to put in a date for a day 5 or day 3 transfer that would calculate the due date.  She didn’t know how to calculate the due date based on the day of transfer.  So she put in the transfer date of January 9, which gave the due date of October 6th.  She knew that it wasn’t right, but there was no way to change that.  She guaranteed me that the nurse practitioner would change it to the most appropriate date.  I told her the due date and she believed that it was right, but we still needed to wait until later for it to be changed.

Here comes the heart attack part.  I said to the nurse that if there was a heartbeat we should be able to see it today, right?  She said, oh not necessarily.  She said that you guys are so early (6 weeks 5 days) that the heartbeat doesn’t always show.  I was like, No no, my doctor back in California said that we should be able to see a heartbeat by 6 weeks 2 days.  She said that Oh not on the bedside ultrasound that we use.

I was panicking.  Uh no… we are NOT only just going to use a bedside ultrasound.  When we booked the appointment, Annie specifically asked for a vaginal ultrasound, and she confirmed it two times with the office about that.  The nice nurse got a little combative and said, Uh no that’s not what we usually do at the first ultrasound.  And I was like… but we confirmed that it WAS going to be a vaginal ultrasound.  She said that this is not your fault but someone at the office is going to hear about it because they shouldn’t have confirmed with you that it was going to be the more detailed ultrasound.  I wanted to cry.  I said, Don’t tell me that I took a day off with my husband and flew all the way over here from California for you to tell me that I will not be able to get a vaginal ultrasound to get a definitive answer on the heartbeat.  I waited for five whole years for this moment.  At that point, the nurse realized how serious the situation was.  She said that they were very flexible and she was going to make sure that we would get to see a heartbeat today before we left.  So basically, whoever made the appointment for Annie did not notify the nurse that this was an IVF case where a vaginal ultrasound was needed.  One wasn’t scheduled.  And in order to get one done, we’d have to be squeezed in between the ultrasound technician’s appointments.  The nurse smiled and told me not to worry.  She’d make sure that we got all the things that we needed done.

Phew.  For a moment, I thought that we would have to go home empty-ended without a definitive answer.  That would have been so devastating for me.

That whole process took a total of 20, 25 minutes.  Next we were taken into an exam room to see the nurse practitioner.  This practice is very interesting.  You don’t see the OB at the first visit.  The expectant mom always sees the NP first.  The NP was super nice.  She reassured me that we would go next door once the ultrasound room was freed up.  In the mean time, she asked me about the transfer and the pregnancy.  The great thing about her was that she addressed me 100% of the time because I was the mom.  She talked to me about the care and she asked me questions.  She was respectful and showed the understanding that this is my pregnancy and not Annie’s.  Truthfully, I didn’t know too many questions to ask.  I know a lot about infertility but I know nothing about pregnancy.  So we discussed a bit about the care.  The NP suggested checking the uterus with the bedside ultrasound before we headed for the vaginal one later.

At that moment I was nervous.  I just didn’t know if we’d see something.  The NP left the room and pulled in a machine.  Annie lay down and the probe was put on her tummy.  Instantly we could see two dark circles.   The probe picked up the flickering movement of one of the circles right away.  It was the most amazing thing to see.  When I saw it, I couldn’t stop my tears from coming.  I was overwhelmed with joy that the heartbeat was so easy to find.  Annie grabbed my hand and kept saying, You are a mommy.  The NP tried to look at the other dark circle closely.  We could see something, but couldn’t quite see the flickering heart like the first one.  It was a relief to see one heartbeat but I was also very eager for the other one to have a heartbeat too.  I stopped crying and asked if I could bring Bob back.

Poor guy.  He had been sitting outside for over 45 minutes having not a clue about what was going on inside.  A nurse went to get him. When he showed up, the look on his face was so worried that I felt sorry to have kept him waiting for so long.  And poor him.  He couldn’t gauge from my facial expression if it was good news or bad news because I just finished crying.  When we showed him the first heartbeat, he was naturally concerned about the other one.

We were then told that the ultrasound room freed up and we were able to get the vaginal one done.  Annie’s husband and kids came in.  We could instantly see the two round circles again.  The tech typed in Baby A and Baby B.  It was just so surreal to see those words typed on the screen.  The tech measured Baby A first.  Like I said, it was 6 weeks 5 days with a heart rate of 128.  The true relief came when she zoomed into Baby B and measured its size and its heart rate.  7 weeks 1 day with a heart rate of 125.  When I saw that, I cried again.  I just couldn’t hold my tears (nor did I want to).  It was one of the most amazing 5 minutes in my life to see the lives that are now living inside Annie.

When we returned to the other room to see the NP, Annie, Bob and I had a group hug with the babies too.  Annie kept saying, You are going to be mommy and daddy!  The NP came in again to congratulate us.  We discussed the next appointment.  We’ll have another scan done at 8 weeks 5 days.  Dr. E basically wants a scan every 2 weeks to make sure that the cervix is long and closed.  The NP also mentioned that they’d still want to see if they could wait til 39 weeks for delivery even when it’s twins and it’s supposed to be a scheduled C-section (due to Annie’s hernia problems).  So as of now, I don’t have the definite due date.  But she said that we don’t need the NT part of the scan at 13 weeks because we did PGS testing.  I plan on attending the ultrasound appointment again at around 12 weeks 5 days or 12 weeks 6 days.

So this is it.  Despite the drama at the appointment, we are so relieved and happy with the outcome.  I know it’s still early, but we feel tremendously blessed to have a chance to have two babies at the same time.  It is still so surreal and hard to wrap my mind around it.  Praise God for the lives that He has been sustaining for us inside Annie.  Now we need the babies to stay put until we see them face-to-face in September.