Where was I...? Oh yes, New Year's Eve and the positive pregnancy test.
Well, I was very excited, but I the same time I kept second guessing myself. Had I tested too soon? Were the hormones from the trigger shot still in my body? A trigger shot is HCG injection that releases eggs once they're mature. HCG is also the pregnancy hormone detected by pregnancy test, so testing too soon could show a false positive. I know, you're hearing much more about my medical/reproductive health than you ever wanted to know. So, I figured I would test the next day, see if the 2nd line on the test grew fainter or darker. Well, on New Year's Day, I took another test and the line was darker, so I felt pretty confident this wasn't just leftover HCG from the trigger shot. I decided to send a picture text to my parents to surprise them with the news (they didn't know we gone through fertility treatments in December). I send the text and a few minutes later my mom calls. "Really? Are you sure?" " Yes, Mom, pretty sure, although it's very, very early." Meanwhile, in the background, my dad keeps asking "Is it hers?" No, Dad, I just go around stealing/randomly taking pictures of other women's positive pregnancy tests.
Well, the pregnancy was confirmed later that week at the doctor's office and a date set for an ultrasound a few weeks later, at the end of January. In the meantime, you know how I was talking about second guessing myself? I did plenty of that while I waited for the for the date of the ultrasound. Was I still pregnant? The symptoms were different. Did that mean anything?
Well, the date of the ultrasound finally arrived. Andrew had to work that day, so I went by myself. The tech started the ultrasound and everything looked normal. "There's the baby. Everything looks great so far," she said. I told her about some of my symptoms, some of the aches and pains I had been feeling in my belly, which I thought might have to do with the injections and how they had stimulated my ovaries. She offered to check their size, make sure things were getting back to normal. As she moved the ultrasound probe, all of a sudden, this bubble moved across the screen. 'What was THAT?' I thought. "There are two!" the tech blurted out. Talk about shock. I knew that, because of my age, the chances of a multiples pregnancy were higher, but at the same time, there were fewer mature eggs during this cycle than the number I had when we conceived Amber, so I didn't think having twins was a possibility.
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| This picture is actually of the 2nd ultrasound, two weeks later. |
I left the fertility clinic in a bit of a daze. Was this really happening? I sent a picture message of the ultrasound to Andrew... no answer. I called a while later... voice mail. Alright, desperate times call for desperate measures. I headed over to Andrew's work and handed him the ultrasound pictures. "Doce?" (12 in Spanish) "No, no, not twelve! Just two," I said. After a laugh and congratulations from Andrew's co-workers, now there were two of us in a daze. We talked for a little while and it was time for me to let him go back to work and leave. We shared the news with family and friends, still trying to come to grips with the news. Now, assuming everything went well, we had to wait another 12 weeks (3 months) to find what we were having (babies, of course)....
