This is the third part of the series I began when we found out we were expecting. This was written July 24, 2006 when we went for the first OBGYN visit. I want to thank everyone who either saved these and sent them to me ( I was missing some I didn't even know about) and T-Man who sent me the complete list.
This morning was our first official visit to the OBGYN.
My wife has to drink some ‘glucose’ concoction before we even leave the house. I think it’s so we can start early on getting the baby hooked on sugar. I can only gather, that it is much harder than people realize it is, to get them hooked on the stuff ‘after’ they are born. She drinks it in two minutes and makes some interesting faces.
We leave pretty much on time and arrive eight minutes late. This is excellent for us. When we sign in, we take our seats in the waiting room. We talk about the fact that today, we will get to hear the Pea-Pod’s heartbeat. ‘Pea-Pod' is what refer to the baby as. I was shut down on ‘Cletus The Fetus’. Needless to say, I didn’t even go with my second choice, “Bob The Glob”.
My wife’s name is called. But right before it is called, a woman comes in and walks up to the registry window, which I am sitting directly in front of. On the chair next to the window, she puts down a carrier, with a baby in it. My wife leans over in my ear and says “This is probably her first follow up since the delivery. That’s a newborn.”
I just stare. It’s sleeping. It has a little blanket covering all but it’s head and it’s bare little feet. I stare at this tiny, olive skinned baby with the thick swatch of black hair as the nurse rolls back the window. The noise wakes the baby. It’s eyes open ever so slowly and it’s little bare feet just…stir. It looks right at me.
“Excuse me. Did you make that noise? Not that I mind. I’m just asking.”
It’s little eyes flutter then focus on me again.
“Excuse me again. Where are we? This all looks so new. And …hmmmm..interesting.”
It’s little pink tongue swells out a bit and ..is that a smile or a smirk?
“And you sir, you look quite interesting.”
Before I can respond to it, the mother lifts the carrier and is gone, as my wife says to me ‘C’mon, hun. That’s us.”
As we walk back into the hall, my wife is informed that she will be getting a complete physical. I am told that I can wait here, as the nurse points to a chair. This is fine with me, because I know two things. My wife HATES physicals. She hasn’t had one since February of last year. I have to bite my tongue, of which there is not much left of. I bite it a lot since she got pregnant. I wanted to say “Getting her pregnant was the only way I could get her in here.” My wife has a great sense of humor, but I, apparently , do not. When we were at the clerks office getting our marriage license, and the clerk starts asking ‘Have you taken any mind altering drugs in the past 72 hours? Have you been drinking? Are you currently married to one or more individuals?’…my wife was not amused when I looked at her and the clerk and said ‘These are an awful lot of odd questions just to get a hunting license. Did you bring me to the right office, honey?’
The other thing I know is that we had discussed last night that she may have to have a physical. And she had said that perhaps she needed to ‘Get things in order.’ before we went. After all this is over, I will have to ask her why it is okay to shave her armpits and paint her toes (and other things I won’t go into) for the doctor, but I get to see the ‘natural’ woman all the other times. Then again, maybe I won’t ask. I still have some tongue left to bite. So, I sit and wait.
When they call me back, I smile and walk back into the exam room. As I walk in, I am greeted by a hand thrust in my direction that belongs to a very pleasant doctor who is introducing himself and congratulating me. Oh, and there is my wife. In a paper dress, on her back, with her feet elevated in a set of stirrups. Now, I have often envisioned the stirrups and tear away dress, but in my version the room had much more leather, lower lighting, and there wasn’t a grinning man with a stethoscope staring at us.
That aside, I smile at my wife as the doctor tells us all is well. My wife smiles at me and says “Yes, all is well. Except for the huge slice they have removed from my who-who for the pap test. All is well. Very well. Dear.” I bite my tongue.
Oh, and there is the third person, who followed me into the room, that, without even a warning, cracks me upside the back of my head with a Louisville Slugger. He’s been around a lot lately, and I call him Reality. He was also with me when we came here to confirm we were pregnant. He’s the one that sat on my chest and caused the nurse to look at me and ask if I felt okay. He was kind enough to get out of her way while she got me some Tums and water to aid me through my anxiety attack.
The doctor informs me, that now, “We get to hear the heartbeat.”
Heartbeat?
“Hearbeat?” I ponder. “The Pea-Pod has a ..heart-beat?”
To which Reality gives me a thump in the kidney with his Slugger.
I watch as the doctor ‘greases’ my wife’s belly and pulls out what looks like a Star Trek Tricorder with a little wand attached. He turns it on and I hear…static. He then begins to press the wand on my wifes belly and move it over the area he has ‘greased’. He explains that he has to ‘find’ the Pea-Pod first. “They like to hide, sometimes.” he grins at me. Ha.
I hold my wifes hand as the doctor plays hide and seek with the Pea-Pod. I may have said ‘I love you’ to her once or twice as I watch the doctor. The doctor now looks at me, but his smile is smaller and…apologetic? “He-heh. This one really wants to hide.” As I squeeze my wifes hand a little harder, I feel Reality give me a little nudge in the right lung. The doctor stops what he is doing and says “Oh, well. This happens.”
WHAT happens? What the …What HAPPENS?!
“We’ll take you down to ultrasound. If I can’t find it, they will.” He grins again.
Reality is doing a tap-dance on my cerebellum and I feel it throbbing through my eyes and temple like a freight-train. We leave the exam room. In the hallway, the doctor hands us off to ‘Ann’. Ann is ‘dressed’ like a nurse, in a brightly colored ensemble, but I think she is more of a tech. I ran into one when I had my heart catheter done. They work with the ultra-sound. They are always pleasant, nice, and very relaxing to be around, at least, that’s what I have found. Ann is no different. She looks to be in her 50’s. Handsome and beautiful for her age. She is also, I notice immediately, a cancer survivor. She is bald, but wearing an incredibly large, blue sun hat, that flops all around her angelic, smiling face with every move. I feel Reality lifting his Slugger again, but even he is taken aback by her and relaxes a bit.
She takes us to another room, where, after having dressed, my wife is asked to strip from the waste down, put on another paper dress and mount another table with stirrups. Now, I have had ultrasound before, as I mentioned. For my heart and as therapy for back muscles. I am familiar with the hand held device attached to the phone cord that goes to the machine. When getting it for my back, I even had a nurse who forgot…FORGOT to grease me up and just lay that fully charged Nazi-device on my bare skin. (I got 8 more weeks of therapy from that. My back spazzed for days, pulling every muscle in it.)
However, I had never seen an ultrasound device like this. I have never seen one that looked like it should have ‘Doc Johnson’ engraved on the side, with his smiling mustached face gazing at you. I have never seen one that required a ‘sheath’. I have never seen one that is 'inserted'. And I have never imagined, in a million years, that I would be standing in a room, my wife spread eagle in stirrups and a paper dress, while a bald, fifty-some-odd year old woman in a blue sun hat holding something that looked like it came from the Adult section of Spencer’s Gifts was saying “Let me just put some K-Y Jelly on this…”
Then, as she inserts this ‘thing’ into my wife's...she asks me to turn out the lights. As I do, I have expect to hear The Devinyls break into “I Touch Myself”.
Across the table, I see the ultra-sound screen. Reality has his arms wrapped around my chest and is applying pressure for all he is worth. I see what must be the womb. It’s dark. Nothing. I hear Ann say “Okay, Scooter-Boo…here I come.”
Now, I KNOW she is talking to Pea-Pod. But Reality has a brother who pops up every now and then. His name is Po’. (AAhhhh…you see, now) and Po’ is a twisted little monkey, who says to me “Did she just call your wife’s who-who ‘Scooter-Boo?’ and snickers at me.
“C’mon Scooter-Boo…where are you…?”
I hold my wifes hand tightly.
What was that.?
“Oh. There you are Scooter-Boo.”
I see it. On the monitor. The Pea-Pod. A grey mass in the womb. Just there. Just …there. I am not impressed. Niether is Reality as he squeezes me harder, whispering “No heartbeat, dude. Nadda. You‘re both too old. She‘s too old. You knew this could happen, dude. Let me squeeze a little more, right around the chest here,dude.”
I stare at the mass and watch as the womb goes dark again. Then it’s back. Gone. I see a head. Gone. What’s that? Gone.
“Squeezing harder, dude. Hang on.”
“C’mon, Scooter-Boo. Oh, there it is.”
The mass is clearer. Much clearer. Head, body.
“That is the Scooter-Boo’s stomach bubble.”
Stomach?
Gone. Mass. Head. Whole Scooter-Boo again.
“And right there…..” Ann moves the mouse pointer, “right there is Scooter-Boo’s heart.”
HEART?
It was half-the size of a dime. A white and black and grey blur. A blur that seemed to glow and pulse and throb quickly. Like the tiniest UFO dancing in a foggy night sky. Like a twinkling star reflected in a rippling pond. A Heart. The Pea-Pod’s heart. Beating like the wings of a hummingbird, from what I could see.
“Can we hear it?” my wife asks.
“Sorry, hun. Not on this machine. We just got this one and I‘m still green on it, and can't figure out the sound.”
Reality has stopped squeezing and is just holding me. Warmly. Like a brother. We are both in awe.
Then it’s gone. Back. What?
“It’s moving” I said.
“Yes. Scooter-Boo is active today.” Ann says.
Then, suddenly, you can see Scooter-Boo so clearly. So very clearly. Ann is describing what we are seeing, but I don’t need the commentary. Legs. Belly. Feet. Arms.
Hands. Hands with fingers. I can see FINGERS. And the hands are moving. The one at the top of the screen is…waving. Almost reaching up.
Shut-up. It waved, dammit. I saw it. It WAVED.
Then, Scooter-Boo turned away and was gone. Playing. Laughing at me. Probably because I was crying. So was my wife. Reality breathed a heavy warm breath across my face and sighed. Reality sighed and we all sighed with it.
As Ann continued to take readings and measurements, the Pea-Pod amazed us with it’s skills at tumbling and turning. Waving and rolling. Floating in a place that was truly a world of it’s own.
Ann was trying to find the ‘cord insertion’ when the Pea-Pod did a most amazing tumble…and…what’s that?
The Pea-Pod mooned us.
Po’ laughed. “Yup. That’s your DNA in there for sure.”
Ann said at 12 weeks, 6 days it was kind of early to ‘guess’ the sex, but would take a shot if we wanted. She pointed the mouse at Pea-Pods ‘genital’ area and looked at us. We said we would wait til it could be more accurate.
Then it’s little bottom vanished again.
All is well. It has a beautiful beating heart and everything else is just as beautiful, including the day, Ann just out of chemo in her sunhat, the grinning doctor, and my wife. You, too, Reality. You’re beautiful as well.
What about you, Po’? Of course you’re beautiful. You’re a sick little monkey, but you’re beautiful. What? No! We can’t call it ‘Jethro The Embryo.’