First Appointment & Details

We had our first appointment with this baby pregnancy in early Oct.  I was 9 weeks along.

I'd delayed our appointment a little because there was a big anniversary weekend at church.  I really wanted to attend and celebrate.  And I didn't want the possibility of it being marked by grief.  Mentally, there were also three "fun" things to do in the days after my appointment, that I was really looking forward to and would be so sad to miss... a YL banquet- then we always go out with friends afterwards, a dinner update with a missionary OB-GYN from our church who works in Kenya, and (less exciting) Lily's class trip to the pumpkin patch (I think they asked me to go after I was trying to avoid it?).  

Another fortunate thing is that I ended up going to a different hospital than the one I've always gone to, and worked at.  My usual office didn't have an appointment time that worked.  So they offered that I go to their other location.  And it hit me that that would be a wonderful thing to not have to walk into that same room I'd walked into twice before.  

So Mike obviously came with me to the appointment.  I told him that he was walking every.single.step with me into that office, not meeting me there, not dropping me off, etc.

We ended up waiting a loooooong time (to the tune of 1.5 hours maybe) to go back.  

I was nervous but ready to know.  And mostly that morning, I felt fairly relaxed or maybe just happy to spend some extra time sitting with Mike.

Immediately at the start of the ultrasound, the tech was very gracious and quickly said 

"Good News!  The heartbeat is great!"

WOW!  Tears of joy and relief and astonishment!

The heart rate (160) was so significantly high that it was wonderful & didn't leave much room for worry.  A few other findings that has been concerning in the last pregnancy were not true this time around, which gave reassurance.

We met with the doctor & I had some lab work.  It ended up being a long morning and Mike got to go pick Lily up from preschool (maybe first time ever so a treat for her!).  It was a warm, gorgeous, sunny 70 degree day!  The three of us went to lunch to celebrate and ate outside.  It doesn't sounds so exciting to write it out, but it just stands out to me as a wonderful day of such JOY and SHOCK and AMAZEMENT!  The bright sunshine, a lunch date outside with my sweet family, and good news to celebrate!

The next few days were such joy.  It felt like such a gift to be able to go to those events, with the idea of a little one growing well.  :)