A photo journal comprised of my thoughts on motherhood and other life happenings, as well as some of professional work as a photographer. Southern California is home.
When I saw my first positive pregnancy with Hooper, I called an OB right away. Since we had been planning to get pregnant, I asked a few friends for their OB/GYN recommendations. I went with Dr. S purely because my friend had delivered two children vaginally in his care. With the statistics today pointing to a 1 in 3 c-section rate, this was what was most important to me. Back to my point. I was on the phone with the office, gitty with excitement, making my first appointment to come in. They scheduled my first appointment for the following week, at five weeks. They did an ultrasound. We saw what appeared to be a little yolk sac. We were in love. Instantly. Dr. S muttered something about not seeing the embryonic pole and left us with parting words that still make me cringe, “I wouldn’t celebrate just yet”. We made our next appointment and left with confusion and a little speck of fear. What followed was blood test after blood test tracing my HcG level, which was always high and always increasing. In hindsight, I had nothing to worry about. What we saw on the ultrasound at five weeks is pretty typical for what an ultrasound at five weeks should show. Maybe I’m skeptical, but I still wonder if it was his ploy to suck us in under his wings of fear.
We went along with him for a few more weeks before we changed our care and were seen by two wonderful midwives.
Fast forward.
When I saw my first pregnancy test this time around, I smiled. I wrapped it up in a box, put the box in a shirt, but plastic cling wrap around the shirt, taped the cling wrap, put it in a box, and wrapped the box in wrapping paper. Then I gave it to Willy. And then we celebrated together. I sent a text message a few weeks later to our midwife and told her the good news. She gave us the option of getting an early ultrasound for dating purposes or just coming in after the holidays. We opted to have the ultrasound since it wasn’t too long after I started my periods again (I was breastfeeding) and we weren’t completely sure of our dates.
We went to the midwives backup OB, Dr. K yesterday. And I had my first ultrasound, at 8 weeks. Not only did we see a yolk sac, but we also saw a little fetus and heard a little heart pounding. Music to our ears. We had a short discussion about going for another home birth (it didn’t work out the first time around) and surprisingly got a dose of reassurance. Yes, you are reading it correctly. An OB/GYN advised us that a home birth could be the best option for us.
