The high highs and the low lows

I'm pretty sure in the past 4 months, this pregnancy has resulted in as many tears as the 2 1/2 years we spent trying to conceive. Don't get me wrong, a lot of those tears have been happy, but it has certainly been a roller coaster. From the moment I saw the flickering of those two little heartbeats on the ultrasound screen, I have felt some of the happiest and some of the scariest feelings in my life.

One thing I have absolutely loved about being pregnant is how much stronger I feel things, particularly in relation to the babies. I hear a song on the radio that makes me think of the babies and I will cry, no matter where I am and what is so awesome about being pregnant is that I don't care that I'm crying. I have no shame. I have pulled up to the Starbucks drive thru with tears running down my cheeks from a song on the radio and I'm not embarrassed.

The flip side to that is when we get bad news or I feel that the pregnancy is threatened, the emotions I feel are amplified beyond my imagination. I have had several bleeding scares during my pregnancy. The first was around 8 weeks. I was at the point where I was feeling pretty confident about things. I hadn't had any spotting or cramping in the first month of pregnancy and I was really starting to get smug about how well things were going. Then I went to the bathroom and there was blood. I was so scared and in total shock. Being forced to face the fact that this pregnancy can end at any time without warning was the worst feeling. I cried and hugged Tim and prayed that everything would be OK. An ultrasound the following morning showed both babies where they were supposed to be with strong heart beats.

More recently, I received some not-so-good news from my MFM (maternal-fetal medicine doctor). I had a first trimester screen done at 13 weeks and the results were not normal (my bloodwork was lost and we didn't get the results until 16 weeks!). My bloodwork showed a 1:46 chance of either trisomy 18 or 13. I was devastated and I cried big ugly tears when we got home. Tim and I spent the next 2 days in a state of shock, fear and depression. We talked about the 'what ifs' at the same time trying to squash the horrible sadness and fear that kept creeping up.

Follow up bloodwork showed a dramatic reduciton in the risk of trisomy 18, unfortunately, there is no way to gather more information about trisomy 13 without doing an amniocentesis and Tim and I decided that the risks of the amnio outweighed the benefits of knowing the results. After speaking with my OB, we feel that although there is a chance we may have a child with a genetic issue, it is still unlikely, and if our anatomy scan does not show any major abnormalities, we can feel fairly confident that things will be alright.

Tomorrow afternoon is my anatomy scan. I am so excited to see the babies, but at the same time, I am so incredibly scared about what they might find. I don't know how I will handle it if one of the babies is sick. I would give anything to be a blissfully ignorant teenager right now. I'm sure that 16 year old girls who get pregnant don't spend a lot of time fretting over the possibility of genetic abnormalities in their babies.

Any thoughts and prayers you can spare for the scan tomorrow would be appreciated. I will update as soon as I can.