In my previous post, I described my uncertainty as to whether I was pregnant. Some pregnancy tests (even those performed at the doctor’s office) were positive, while others were negative. No one seemed to have a clue of what was going on! The following week, I had to go back to the hospital for further tests. My partner and me both sat there waiting for my appointment time, but it was delayed by roughly two hours, and time was going by seriously slowly while we were just sitting waiting around…
My partner had been very supportive with me throughout this time, which is everything that I needed. I don’t know how I would have coped had he not been able to be there for me. At each appointment, I had to stop my nerves getting the better of me. It was more than annoying expecting to get answers each time I visited, having to wait for hours, and then the doctors still not being sure of what was happening. However, my partner helped me through every step of the way, both emotionally and physically, being there at each appointment. He was there for me even when we were not together most of the weekdays, which is what someone especially needs when they are going through an uncertain time.
For the entire week, I had been having dull pains near my left ovary. I told the doctor about this before I had the scan. They thought it might be signs of an ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy is when the fertilized egg is not in the womb; instead it attaches itself to one of the fallopian tubes (see image below).
After telling them this, they started the internal scan to see if they could see anything this week and whether there were any problems with the pregnancy. They slowly turned the screen towards us, so we could see exactly what the doctors were able to see, and there it was a tiny little heartbeat. That’s all you could see, as everything else was too small, but you could see it beating away like it was sticking out against everything else on the screen.
Although there was a very strong heartbeat that was visible on the screen, the doctors were still concerned that the fetus was not going to develop and would miscarry because it was very small for my gestational age. Therefore, I had to be booked-in for another scan for the following week! I also had to keep having regular blood tests each week, so they were able to see if the hGC hormone was increasing in my body or not.
The next appointment came around fairly quickly, and again we were both sitting there waiting for the scan, only this time when they scanned me you could see everything. Our baby was so small, but you could see the whole outline of its body, its head, its face and its tiny little feet.
The heartbeat was there again and as strong as ever, it was beating so fast. That’s the moment I knew that everything was okay in my pregnancy and that our baby was going to be fine. Plus, the results of my blood test came back and my hGC hormone had been increasing each week, which meant that my pregnancy was going in the right direction. By this time I was 10 weeks pregnant.
Initially me and my partner were not sure what to do over the pregnancy and we were not sure what option to go down, as we were both studying for our Master’s degrees at the time, we had never lived together before, and -like I said in my previous post– me being pregnant came as a bit of a surprise. The most important thing we learned to help get each another was to talk about the options we had and what we would do in each situation. We spoke about how we would cope with a baby, what our life would be like, and how we would afford to bring up a child knowing our situation. We also discussed whether or not now was the right time for us to bring up a child.
This conversation went on for quite a few weeks, as a decision could not be made in a short period of time. Our communication and talking through our options were crucial for our final decision to keep our baby. We thought we could do this because our relationship was very strong and we were prepared for anything, even if we did get a little bit of cold feet to begin with.
Plus, as the weeks went by, I felt like I was getting more and more attached to our baby and seeing it grow on the scans just made this feeling stronger. And when you look online to see how much your baby has developed, at 10 weeks it’s very surprising how big and mature it already is! For instance, all of the vital organs were already fully developed or in the process of being developed. Our baby was already the size of a strawberry. Therefore, we decided that we would continue with the pregnancy, no matter how nervous we were of becoming parents. The next situation we had to face was how our parents would react to the news.
Read how the story continues here.
