Our Doctor...the Celebrity

Before we began the ART process, Dr. Saffan suggested we meet with Dr. Nies to discuss a pregnancy plan.  Lisa went for the consultation, and was very impressed with her.  During this time, we were DVRing every pregnancy show on TV (and there are a lot of them).  Lisa was watching an episode of "Special Delivery", a show on the now defunct Discovery Health Channel, and recognized a familiar face.  Dr. Nies had performed a life-saving delivery on an episode about Fairfax Hospital's High Risk Pregnancy Unit and NICU.  At this point, we had no idea we'd be here, but we did know that if we did find ourselves in trouble, we'd be in good hands.

When we called to schedule the appointment, we were given Dr. Bronksy.  We've since met him, and he is a very good doctor, but Lisa wanted our first appointment to be with Dr. Nies.  We had to wait an agonizing week longer to meet with her.  In the two and a half weeks since we had left Shady Grove, the baby had grown a lot!  It was no longer a "baby-shaped" blob on the screen, it now looked distinctly like a baby.  You could easily see the head, arms, legs and body!  We also heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time at this appointment.  I'd read a few of my friends' posts about the wonder and amazement of hearing the heartbeat for the first time....and they weren't kidding.  We scheduled an appointment a few weeks later for a diagnostic test called a nuchal transluceny screening, which checks for a whole host of things, amongst them Down's Syndrome.  Reality began to set in at this point; the stress and concern we had been dealing with on the quest to get pregnant wasn't about to abate.  Our first trimester was coming to a close, and we couldn't have been more happy to be where we were.