The nuclear reactor kicked in
The day has finally arrived and dammit, how glad we are that it has. We have been waiting for this day for such a long time! Amongst the preparation for our holiday whether it was buying Christmas gifts, me going to meet up with Joseph Jaffe who has come to SA to visit family and to mingle with Cape Town’s “tech elite” as Dave Duarte calls it on Tuesday, getting some video editing done, to get the last ZA Show for 2007 recorded, pretending to be productive at work (hehe – only kidding) and getting into the Christmas and holiday spirit, the day that could change our lives forever has arrived.
We left home VERY early to get to the clinic at 7:45am for our appointment with Dr Seibert who came into our lives with the bearer of bad news when he found that our last pregnancy was the ectopic one. Did this mean that the tables will turn, that the news would turn from bad to worse or from good to frikken brilliant?
There we were, waiting for our turn in the queue for our few minutes in the ultrasound room. The sisters passing by, smiling, as to greet us, going around their daily routine of ushering the women one by one into the ultrasound room and back out again, dishing out medication for those who are starting their fertility cycles. It is amazing how you figure out everybody’s routines at the clinic by now.
There we were, waiting, with large photo frames on the walls of the many IVF babies born from the work of the miracles that were performed by the good doctors at the clinic. Babies on the walls? “How cruel is that”, Bridgitte said. Kinda something that you, who has eaten off the floor at the clinic by now, does not really want to see. But then, a good encouragement that they are very good at what they do. Gosh, the Prof has written many articles for medical journals around the world, been involved in ground breaking research in the 80′s and the list goes on. These guys are good and the babies on the walls show that.
Finally, Bridgitte gets ushered inside to undress, gown on, etc and after a few minutes, I get called in. The ultrasound machine, sitting there waiting for us … at least this one looks like it was made in the 21st century. Dr Seibert arrives, friendly and upbeat and with the words “I hope I’m the bearer of good news this time” coming out and us sitting there, nodding away, anxiously waiting.
Probe goes in, I stand on the other side of the bed stretching over to see the monitor. I see the black, the black blob on the screen. Black blobs, ummm, cysts perhaps? No, ok, everything is looking fine so far .. we see black, that is good! Doc confirms it is the embryonic sack. WHAT? Really? Ok, good so far … lets go on. A sigh of relief on our faces, then I see it. I move over to the other side leaning into the ultrasound machine blocking Dr Seibert’s view. Oops, gotta let the good doctor see too. I stand back, I see the pixels, they move, different shades of grey, changing shade every few split seconds, a heartbeat? Doc confirmed it.
A HEARTBEAT! Yes! The nuclear reactor has kicked in! Yes! We have never got this far. This was AMAZING news! We were both so happy, hugging each other as we call each other mommy and daddy. Oh man, we could not believe it. There on the screen, is our little baby.
6.9mm in size and looking good. 6 weeks and 4 days.
We got out of the ultrasound room with glowing faces. The sisters were very happy too. Sister Mans gave Bridgitte and myself a huge hug of congrats. It was such a great feeling of success. We had a quick chat, settled the bill and left for work.
We called the family up and told them. Not sure if I wanted to tell too many people as yet, so at work, I got the ultrasound scanned, so slowly, but surely, a few people knew. We decided to let it sink in first. Of course, anything can happen, it is still early days indeed.
We had also heard that Michele, Bridgitte’s sister was pregnant too. She is due for a scan later this week, but used a pregnancy test to confirm. 2 sisters pregnant at the same time. How cool is THAT? Of course, we still needed to confirm Michele’s pregnancy too.
