Problems

You hope for a trouble-free pregnancy. Often it doesn't turn out that, and on January 26th things started to go a bit pear-shaped. K reported that she had some minor bleeding. This didn't really worry us, and a quick call to the doc confirmed this. But one week later, with no change, we started to worry. Another call to the doc, more questions from her, and once again we were told that there was no big cause for concern. By Thursday we had had enough. The doc told us to come in that afternoon. Suddenly it seemed that there *was* cause for concern. Now we were truly worried. We started thinking about ectopic pregnancies or simply imminent failure.

They were squeezing us in at 4pm, so we arrived a few minutes early. There were a couple of women in the waiting room with their glorious big bellies, looking all pregnant and happy, whilst we cowered in the corner, terrified for the worst, feeling like outsiders who were about to told whether we could or couldn't join some kind of special club.

Other women came and went and we continued to wait. Obviously we were having to wait for all the regular appointments to go first, but it got more and more excruciating. K and I were working each other into a frenzy of worry, doubt and fear, and all these other women were rubbing salt into a big, open wound. This hour was perhaps the worst hour of either of our lives. That's not an exaggeration. The way we saw it at the time, the life of our baby hung in the balance.

Finally we got called in. It was the first time we got to meet our OB doc, Dr. U. She was young, friendly and her smile was pure sunshine. K "assumed the position" and the doc started poking around. Almost immediately there was bleeding. This was fabulous news, and indicated that her cervix was the source of the blood. In pregnancy, often some of the cells on the inside of the cervix get forced to the outside, where they bleed easily. This is what was going on in this case, and it posed no threat to the baby. Relief flooded the tiny room.

Dr. U took the opportunity to do an ultrasound, even though we would be back for our first scheduled appointment the next week. We peered at the screen and saw nothing until Dr. U pointed out a completely nondescript blob on the screen. This, apparently, was the fetus. A measurement confirmed the due date, and with that we were done, armed with the advice from Dr. U that included no hanky panky until the second trimester. Damn! Oh well, it could be worse...