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Home Sweet Home - 6 East at Fairfax INOVA

Our twenty-week "level - 2" ultrasound began with the second scare of our pregnancy.  We woke up early, too excited to find out for sure the sex of the baby to sleep in.  As has been the case all through our pregnancy, just as soon as we started to let our guard down we got a reality check.  What should have been a nice and relaxing breakfast (something two working professionals rarely get to enjoy) turned quickly into a panic-stricken morning.  The blood had reappeared.

A calm and rational person might have concluded that this was nothing to worry about; we'd seen blood before and we were okay.  But since we've started our ART journey two years ago, I've lost all rationality.  The doctors were on the phone in an instant.  I was expecting to hear some reassurance, but was instead told, "come in right now".  This did not help matters.

After a few months about 30 minutes in the waiting room, we met the ultrasound technician.  A "level - 2" ultrasound offers a much more in-depth look at the baby.  Our technician was really helpful, pointing out the features of our developing baby, including the eyes, arms and legs, hands and feet, and even all four chambers of the heart.  She spent a lot of time looking at the spine and the heart, but everything looked great.  She also confirmed that we were in fact having a girl.  We'd already decided to call her Payton.

We went into the waiting room expecting to see the doctor with information about the results, but were instead called back by the nurse.  The baby looked great, but something about Lisa was a little off.  Her cervix was "short"; meaning the "plug" holding the baby in was not as long as it should have been.  The nurse indicated we'd probably be spending more time resting and taking it easy.  The doctor wanted to check it one last time before we left. 

Let me interject here and share with you all that I am constantly studying things.  I'm a "people-watcher" at the mall, I notice that the hospital elevator goes from floor 3 to floor 5, and I am always studying and processing everything the doctor does when we're in the room.  I noticed the technician studying her cervix, and I also noticed that the cervix looked a little different from the last visit.  I wasn't smart enough to know what it was, or what the implication, but I knew it was different.

While we were waiting for the doctor, a receptionist came into the room with some paperwork.  They wanted to know if we were okay with letting anyone who called know we were at the hospital.  This was a little odd, as we were expecting to leave in a few minutes.  It got a little odder a minute later when she tried to give us a bracelet with our room number on it.  We both looked at each other, shrugged, and then I asked, "so we're not leaving we're staying here?"  It appears the cart was before the horse.  The receptionist was a little embarrassed, apologized and went to find the doctor.  Dr. Nies confirmed our suspicions.  A short cervix and a bleed that morning had earned us a week minimum in the hospital for evaluation, just to be safe.  Even though the baby was fine, we weren't going anywhere.  Hotel INOVA Fairfax, 6th floor.  Home sweet home.  At least we got a room with a view.