Sunday 1 March 2015

The Ultrasound: Baby's first picture

I was so nervous on the morning of our ultrasound. We had not told anyone we were pregnant as we wanted to wait until the 12 weeks to be sure everything was going ok and also so we wanted to have a photo to show everyone.




In the waiting room of Ultrasound Dimensions, Blackrock, Dublin I felt sick, not pregnancy related, just that feeling deep in the pit of your stomach. What if I wasn't pregnant?  What if I had made it up in my head (despite the pregnancy test and doctors confirmation)? What if I had been pregnant but had lost the baby? What if there was an issue?


Having never had an ultrasound before I didn't know what the protocol was, I was expecting the gel to be cold (from all the movies!) - but I did not expect it to hurt! The technician really pushed that thing down on my tummy! We heard the heartbeat, looked at each other and smiled and then looked to the technician, she confirmed it was our baby’s heartbeat. I saw a flicker on the screen - but she moved away from it. She seemed confused and I started to sweat.


“Nothing to worry about” she smiled as she changed utensils, pushed hard on my tummy and moved it about “we will come back to baby in a minute” she said. Then she went to “check something” and my heart was in my mouth, what was going on - how was my baby?


She came back with her book and announced “You have two wombs”
------WHAT?!
What about baby?


Baby was fine, kicking about, doing back flips and baby even waved at us!

The first picture of our baby



But baby was not what our technician was interested in. She said she had never seen this before but believed it was a Uterus didelphys or a Bicornuate uterus. She had only ever studied the 'abnormalities' - which did not put me at ease.
She assured me that the uterine didelphys wouldn’t cause any problems with the pregnancy, but that I should check it out after birth.
She found it strange I never knew, but I had never had any issues, expect heavy periods - which I thought was common.


In the cafe afterwards, my husband and I laughed. We were overjoyed that out baby seemed healthy, we had a good picture of our bundle of joy and our heads were filled with dreams. But we had also come away with unexpected news.


As I tried to come to terms with my two womb situation, we went home and told our families the good news.
My freak out about my wombs came a few days later!


*It turned out to be a Bicornuate Uterus - more on that later!

Anybody else have an unusual first ultrasound experience?

Check out: The First 12 Weeks
The Honeymoon of Pregnancy: The Second Trimester

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations! And thank you for sharing- I am sure other women with a bicornulate uterus will be interested to read more about your journey. Thanks for linking up to #MaternityMatters x x

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