The Ultrasound, or, How to Make a Pregnant Woman Even Crazier

Here’s what I learned from this morning’s ultrasound:

1. I am not six weeks, one day pregnant as I thought I was (according to my last period).
2. I might have a blighted ovum, i.e. another miscarriage.
3. I might be having triplets.
4. I will never have this ultrasound tech again.

So, it was an early appointment, so it was enough to just get my hubby out of bed so that we’d get there on time. The ultrasound tech brings me into the room, and says she’s going to start with an abdominal ultrasound, because she “might be able to see everything we need to see that way.” OK, strike one. I’ve been down this road before, I’ve done my reading. You can almost never see anything via abdominal ultrasound this early, and especially not when the woman in question has, ahem, a little extra padding in that area. But she wants to do it anyways, so who am I to argue? Well, she can vaguely see my uterus, but gives me the nice, confidence-boosting, “I don’t see anything in there.” No kidding. Maybe you should just do the damn trans-vaginal ultrasound my doctor asked for, genius.

She switches equipment, tells me to go pee again (I assure you, I had gone FOUR minutes earlier, nothing else was coming out), and sets up the bed. Well, she wants me to sit on this cushion so that it raises my pelvis up a bit, but she has it turned and propped the wrong damn way. My confidence in her is fading fast.

So, she sees a little round area that she “guesses” (I kid you not, she said it was her “best guess”) is the gestational sac. This is how we know I’m not 6w1d, because if I were, we’d see a noticeable blob of baby and a heartbeat. I know this from experience. What we saw was definitely not what I’ve seen in the past. But, OK, I suppose I could have not ovulated when I thought I did. Fine.

Now she’s trying to measure the sac and it keeps telling her she’s “out of range.” But, of course, she’s new to this practice and this is a new machine to her, so she’s not entirely sure what that means. SERIOUSLY??? You’re killing me here. But she keeps poking around to try to get a better look. And then she asks me, “are you taking any fertility drugs?” Uh, no. Why? Because she’s now seeing two sacs. One more prominent than the other, but two. I start to laugh, but she doesn’t seem to understand why.

Then she’s prodding around some more and finds my right ovary, which she is convinced has a large cyst on it. “Have you had a tubal pregnancy before?” Uh, no. Why? Lordy, who knows? And then she can’t actually find my left ovary. I assure you, I’ve had four previous trans-vaginal ultrasounds, and they always seem to take great delight in showing me both of my ovaries. Lefty has apparently gone AWOL. Great.

By the way, as she continues to poke around and generally make non-encouraging comments (“Are you sure you don’t have any fibroids?” Yes, it was checked out a month ago. “I’ve never actually had one of these, myself.” Oh, great. I’m glad you know what it’s like, then.), and while she’s pointing out the sacs (“there’s #1, there’s #2″), hubby and I are both quite certain we see a third of whatever it is she’s looking at. He says he saw her kind of flinch and not say anything, probably because she was afraid he’d jump across the table at her.

So, all in all, a rather inconclusive morning, except to say that things just don’t seem to be quite adding up. It’s possible that I would have been 6w1d, but things just aren’t developing. It’s possible there were anywhere between one and three gestational sacs and my dates are just off. It’s possible I have a growth on my right ovary and a disappearing left ovary. Only a few things are certain: that I will have another ultrasound in a week or so; that I won’t be able to talk to my OB about this until at least Tuesday because of the holiday; and that I will do everything in my power to not have this ultrasound tech again. She wasn’t mean, she wasn’t totally uncaring, she just made me feel I’d be better off doing the ultrasound myself.

More than anything, I wish I could have come out of there with something conclusive about this pregnancy. If I’m miscarrying again: fine. At least I’d know and can move on. If I’m not as far as I thought, but having triplets: holy crap. But fine, let me start to deal with that reality. But no. All I know is that I’ll likely have another week or more of being paranoid and wondering what the hell is going on in my uterus. I’m going to lose my fragile little mind.