Where Are We Now? (Marina)

Quarantasei.

Carina

I stood sideways in front of the body mirror in my work closet, trying to come to terms with what I could not yet believe. There were two in there. Two squishy little embryo's.

The small pouch above my pubic bone was officially starting to poke out. Two little prunes, as Maya liked to remind me. They were forming their little bones and teeth, which was actually making me queasy. What didn't make me queasy these days? So for the 7th time today I ran to the restroom and threw up the apple sauce I thought I was going to be able to keep down.

The nausea continued to wake me up earlier. I was already sleeping less which only made the increased fatigue worse. That was my initial sign. Twins usually accompanied increased amounts of nausea, fatigue, and I was going to the bathroom every time I had a sip of water. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but I'm Italian. I exaggerated for effect and it felt like the truth and two babies was enough to have my hormones raging.

There was a small sign on the 4 week ultrasound where I could notice a slight division in the amniotic sac. My well-trained eye was almost certain, but I held out for the possibility that I was wrong. Not that I wasn't happy with the news, but two of everything would be a challenge.

A challenge Maya seemed more and more excited for as the days passed while I felt more and more overwhelmed. Somehow she had become the calm enthusiastic one while I was one 'sold out of donut holes' away from an entire meltdown.

After the 10 week ultrasound I was officially off of the progesterone and now my body was making it naturally. The positives were I didn't feel like my vagina was sandpaper anymore, but I wasn't exactly feeling very sexy with how much my body was throwing up. The negatives were I was still apprehensive, that something would go wrong, that I'd lose them and never recover. I was dwelling.

Maybe once I pass the 12 week mark I will feel differently, or when the symptoms get better. My brain was in a funk and I hoped it wouldn't last the whole pregnancy. I'd been staring at the small darkened veins under my bloated belly for more than I had anticipated.

Okay, ciò che sarà, sarà... I tucked my undershirt back into my sad black scrub pants so I could get back to work instead of worrying my life away in front of a mirror. The black scrubs did not help much, seeing how the world was taking a turn for the worst.

Somehow the whole process of being pregnant while wearing black all day everyday made it harder to find joy. As if it wasn't already hard to find great women's health care. Now all these laws were trying to make it impossible. Now my babies could be entering a completely different messy world.

One where there were more states outlawing access to reproductive care than states legalizing it. Which has us all feeling the demand. Something that had been a rare occurrence was now being seen in higher numbers because people from all over the country were flying to doctors that respected the right to choose.

Which seemed to be all I was seen as anyway, people very rarely saw my job as anything other than pregnancy and babies. There was so much more to it. If they would see the extreme cases of PCOS and Endometriosis I caught. As if birth control only had one function! Rrrrgh.

Not to mention the uterine fibroids, the cysts! That are missed by other doctors that write them off as period side effects. It's honestly astounding how many doctors are in the field and misdiagnose because the mere idea that there could be more going on with the female body is somehow crazy.

It infuriated me to no end just thinking about it. So when my phone went off I looked down with a grunt, but was surprised when I got paged up to the pediatric floor.