Pregnant Naturally at 45. Wow!
I wake up filled with trepidation. Today I officially find out if I am pregnant or not. There is a 1% chance of my falling pregnant naturally at 45, as the doctor explained to me on Friday. This has been the longest weekend ever. Never, ever get a blood test on a Friday at the OBGYN, I note to myself. I already feel like I must be pregnant and that explains a lot of the odd things that have been going on like the vivid dreams I was having, which I thought were due to Chantix.
I go to the doctor’s office. She takes away my mobile phone to make sure I am paying attention. I would rather be anywhere but here, but since I'm here, can we speed this along, already? I have to watch her read all the test results on her laptop. She says...let me get through this quickly, then we chat. Time comes to a screeching halt. She snaps her laptop shut and swivels her stool around so that she is facing me. I try to read her face. My anxiety is going through the roof. She smiles gently at me, as she scans my face. Then we lock eyes and she speaks very slowly and deliberately. Congratulations! You are pregnant. Seven weeks and 3 days, pregnant. WHAT??? She tells me my progesterone is 8.4 and she would like to see it at least 20. She says anything five and under is a guaranteed miscarriage. She says my hCG is at 15K and it should double every 24 hours. Really this part sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher. The whole earth has opened up underneath me and I am just dangling by a thread slightly above it. Wow. My HC-what's that now? Wwah, wwah, wwah.
I scoot down to the end of the exam table. My feet need to be on the ground. I need the world to stop spinning. I want to get off. I take a deep breath and look her squarely in the face. I tell her I won’t be keeping it. She pauses and carefully tells me about my options.
She watches me closely for my reactions as she speaks. One is the abortion pill. She says it is $495 and frowns. I tell her that is fine, I’ll take it. She won’t administer it on the same day as the test results, she said to give it 48 hours. She says “The thing with the pill is once you take it, there is no going back, it can’t be undone.” Well I should hope so! <sigh> I guess I am supposed to process all this information first?
She tells me it is very, very rare for someone my age to fall pregnant without medical intervention. Very, very rare. Less than 1% chance.
She pops in the transvaginal ultrasound and there is something on the screen! Something about four times the size of what we saw on Friday. I am shocked. She says they grow very rapidly at this age and that is why she wanted me back so quickly. I have to be honest, the only thing I can really make out is that it is larger and somehow seems living now. Friday it was a bubble...maybe. Today it looks like a jelly fish, it's moving, bobbing in liquid. She starts taking measurements, but I am kind of at a loss for what is where. It's been over 23 years since I stared at the ultrasound of a baby inside of me.
Oh my God. There is a baby inside of me. Somehow, I feel attached it to it. There on the screen, though difficult to make out, was my baby. It tugged at my heart. It belonged to me. Bucket lists be damned.
They take more blood work and tell me they will send me the results. I spend the evening researching this whole pregnant at 45 thing. It is indeed rare and the internet is filled with women who are trying to get pregnant. Desperately, hopefully, prayerfully, trying to get pregnant. Wow. Who knew?? They have their own code language, in fact their own world. It is the world of trying to conceive or TTC. Trying being the operative word, as in usually for longer than a year. I spend hours in chat rooms, on message boards and reading blogs. I quickly learn this new language of acronyms, sadness, desperation, hope and an incredible amount of support and encouragement.
I start to tell a few people that I am pregnant and wish I had gotten a photo of the ultrasound. Everyone thinks I'm joking. No one is really supportive. Perhaps it is my own uncertainty they sense. Are you going to keep it? It's what they ask gently after they realize I am quite serious. Had they asked me the morning of April 1st, the answer would have been hell no. The morning of April 3rd, would have been the same. The afternoon of April 3rd, it had changed. I was no longer certain of anything.
Consulting Dr. Google, would become my favorite pastime, learning about prenatal ultra sounds and viability. I keep trying to remember if I saw a yolk sac. Had I??? What if there wasn't even a decision that needed to be made by me? What if God was just going to have the last word? How arrogant I had been days before thinking it even mattered what I wanted. Nothing would ever be the same.