The dead baby saga

A few days ago, I was going to post the following, then got distracted and it's been sitting in my drafts:

Yesterday came the big blow: dead baby, no heart beat. Anyone who has gone to that first ultrasound after having had a miscarriage previously knows the feeling: it's the moment of truth.  Do I get to enjoy a healthy pregnancy and look forward to a little person in my arms and at my breast, or is this another dead end? You look over at the monitor, watch for the form of a little tiny being inside come into focus.  Is it moving? 

It wasn't. Nope - still nothing.  The doctor moved the big dildo around in the hopes of finding another angle. No good.  Bottom line: my body has three weeks to expel that near-perfect being I had a glimpse of, or they will go in with instruments and do the deed for me. 

If I were religious, I would say, there is still a chance for a miracle.  Next week, I am coming back to confirm and do a checkup.  "So, is there a chance, we look next week - and there is a heartbeat?!" I asked the doctor.  "I am always happy to double-check."  "Yes, but is there a chance?" "No, I don't think so." That's what I needed to know.  Still, should I pray to an omnipotent being to make an arbitrary exception in my case? Hmmm... now that I put it that way, it sounds like it is a reasonable approach. Anybody got an 800 number for the local office?

OK, this was horribly irreverent.  Still, failing an 800 number, I found one with a (626) area code. Dr. Sutton has been worth the hour and a half drive for my previous pregnancies.  Having switched this time for convenience, I knew where I had to turn in a panic.

"I know, you do not do ultrasounds this early," I explained on the phone.  "Is there a chance the problem is with the test?" "Well, it is very hard to prove, something is not there," Dr. Sutton, the scientist, Caltech & Stanford graduate began. "Failure to find one is inconclusive. The gestational age may not be accurate."  "But the baby measured exactly right,  at 8 weeks four days!" I objected.  "The measurement itself is not precise. So exactly is not always exact." Oh, right.  What was I thinking?  He gave me that speech many times before! "So, after something like this happens, we normally do two blood tests, a few days apart, to look at your HCG levels and see if they are rising." We exchanged a few more words as I was beginning to regain the calm, not of certainty, but of knowing the right thing was going to happen.  "Come see me Wednesday," he said. "We'll figure it out." 

I was ready to cry. Just a few days ago, I was out eating sushi and drinking sake (oops), mourning a dead baby inside my body. Today I was reminded that technology is no substitute for man's mind and competence. It is very likely, still, that the baby is dead. Tomorrow is unlikely to bring me any comfort, either. True, we might find a heart beat, after all, but if not, more tests will follow, with each step down the path bringing an ever-increasing certainty that this baby is lost to me.

This experience, however, is a firm reminder to me, that people like Dr. Sutton, those that are firmly attached to reality, to science, possessing the supreme competence in their own field, make our lives better, set us on better paths, and are worth an infinite amount of trouble... So whether or not, this baby comes to be, it came into my life with a lesson baked into its DNA...