Our first "assignment" was to write a narrative essay. I chose to write about the day I had my first ultrasound with Quinn and I saw that the pregnancy was viable.
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The Day My World Stood Still
People use many different terms to define “making love.” There is passion, romance, love, tenderness, spontaneity, or aggression. There is also mundane, monotonous, utility, and lifelessness. Everyone expects the former, but many receive the latter through no true fault of their own. When years are spent trying to conceive a child, sex proudly walks the line of both extremes.
My husband, Mark, and I married in March of 2007 and immediately began trying to have a baby. Previously, I spent many years attempting the same fete with my first husband only for it to end in miscarriage and, eventually, divorce. Dealing with infertility the minute a new marriage starts can be challenging, but we had mutually strong feelings about wanting a family immediately.
Our first pregnancy began a little over a year later. Sadly, it ended just as quickly as it had begun. I was wary, but Mark was not ready to give up and he helped me fight the emotions and depression that threatened to keep me down. He was determined to make sure we fought every battle we could and exhausted every avenue available. So we kept trying.
Two years, 5 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days after we began our journey, I found out I was pregnant again. The mixture of emotions was an incredibly powerful thing. The highs are the highest and the lows are the lowest, and honestly, there just is no middle ground where infertility is concerned. I knew I had three weeks to wait for our first ultrasound. Time moved slowly, I was distracted and emotional and frustrated. One cannot know the stress that waiting to find out if your pregnancy is viable does to your psyche. It terrorizes you.
Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the day came. On August 31st I got up early and went to work just like every other Monday. I couldn’t focus on anything beyond my appointment. Two Thirty came and I left and drove so slowly to the doctor’s office. I sat in the parking lot allowed myself to cry hard and long. There were just so many random thoughts, what if there is something wrong? What if there is no heart beat? What if there is no baby? What if I am not really pregnant and my body is playing a mean, vicious, evil trick on my brain?
Slowly I got out of the car and I went in. As I waited in the doctor’s office, the thoughts ran through my head, positive, negative, feign indifference. At some point, I couldn’t tell you exactly, they called me back. As they began the ultrasound, I couldn’t breathe. The room was dark and small and hot and I could not see through the water accumulating in my eyes. The doctor reassured me, patting me on the knee in an almost condescending way. He meant well, but he couldn’t understand, no one could begin to understand my fears.
As I lay there, wide open and vulnerable, the doctor performed the ultrasound. I spied on the screen now and then, but I couldn’t really watch. I waited and waited. The exam seemed to go on and on. Finally, he said, and I’m not joking, “Eureka!”
“EUREKA???” I repeated, incensed. If he only knew the heart attack this man was about to cause me.
All he said was “look.” And I did. And there it was, this small, grainy fluttering on a TV screen older than me. It was jerking about and flickering in and out of focus. I grabbed the screen with both hands and stared intensely. It was alive! And inside me! The tears were flowing, my heart was beating so hard, almost out of my chest, and I just could not believe what I was seeing. I was finally really pregnant and for a moment, just one moment, the whole world stopped and breathed with me. We knew, the world and me, that nothing was ever, ever going to be the same again.
