See You Tonight

Maybe I'll see you tonight,

Maybe I'll see you tonight

Wherever the night takes you,

Maybe you'll see me too, 

The colder it gets, you won't see me anymore,

but there's still a chance I might walk to your door

Maybe the time is not right,

I won't be seeing you tonight,

Maybe I'll see you tonight,

maybe I'll see you tonight...

-Green Day 

Just a month or so before I removed my IUD to let this adventure begin, I was talking with a close friend and fellow gynae about how our profession would affect our pregnancy experience. "There won't be the same sense of awe and amazement during the first ultrasound, as I know what to expect..." Of course when I said those words I thought it would only take a few months to get knocked up and the initial scan would reveal a perfect viable pregnancy...

You all know the rest of the story, three years of infertility treatments, yada, yada, yada... here we were again, wondering what could be going on inside my uterus. As Dr STIUTK was away, his partner would be performing my scan.  "So did you transfer one or two?" he asked while prepping the ultrasound probe. Fantastic. He hadn't read my chart. It's usually a good idea when you're seeing a patient not familiar to you. This means he also didn't know that I've had two miscarriages, three failed transfers, and yes this was a single transfer with a euploid embryo.

As I answered, I thought about reminding him of what I do for a living, but I decided just to lie back and to remember that I was a patient. Yet, I couldn't silence the clinician inside my brain as he started to scan. Gestational sac is inside the uterus -phew, no ectopic. There's a perfect sized yolk sac with a fetal pole right next to it. Yes, there is the blinking flutter to indicate cardiac activity. I can only see one, the little bugger didn't split! I was also doing a little backseat ultrasounding. Pause it there! That's a perfect view for the CRL measurement! 

It was both the most overwhelming and yet underwhelming moment of my life. My aforementioned friend had told me that my experience during this ultrasound would be observing Husband's reaction. I looked over at him and he just looked puzzled and confused. He wasn't sure what was happening while the doctor was auscultating the heartbeat, while I thought that even at 130 beats per minute, it could have very well been mine.

As I had previously anticipated, Husband kept his stiff upper lip intact until the other RE and New Girl left the room, and then shed a few tears once the door was shut. At last, he had reached his quest of seeing a beating fetal heart on an ultrasound. Even better -it was ours! We shared a collective sigh of relief, while we also acknowledged that we still have a long way to go. We've never made it to this point before. The embryo's measurement was right on track. The word viable is being used to describe it. This was a significant milestone. Yet, at the same time, I can't help to look at that tiny spec and think that's really it?

I know that I sound like a spoilt brat, but the picture from the RE was really anti-climatic.

So I'm embarrassed to say, that I self-scanned for a better one...

Meet our little grain of rice!