Adventures in Parenting - Chapter 1: 2 Little lines.

2 Little lines. A “C” under one and a “T” under the other. That’s how it began. Initial jubilation turned into hesitation. What if it was a false positive? Another couple of rounds of “pee on the stick” put that doubt to rest. Yep. Definitely pregnant. First major decision. Which doctor do we consult? Most of the well-known gynecs in Bangalore have waiting times stretching above 2 hrs. And that is when you already have a confirmed appointment. Good luck trying to get through via a walk-in. Better bring your lunch with you.

One argument was that if everything went normal, we do not need an expert Gynecologist to see it through. My policy was, as the saying goes, “Better to have and want not rather than want and have not”. Thus we decided to go with the best in the business, Dr. Praveena Shenoi at Cloud 9, Old Airport Road. After a couple of walk in wait-a-thons, with my wife constantly reminding me that if we had gone with some other doctor, we could have reached back home by then, we succeeded in getting a confirmed appointment for the third visit. The trick was to book the next appointment as soon as you came out of your current consultation.

An array of tests and an ultra-sound scan later - nothing to report, which is actually good news when it comes to pregnancy.

Still, for the first 3 months, each bump in the road, each pothole that the car ran into, was a source of a minor heart attack. Every twinge of pain in the stomach/abdomen area raised the heartbeats. It is said that around 85% of miscarriages happen within the first trimester. And when you have already had one, the worry gets multiplied manifold the second time.

It doesn’t mean that once you cross three months, all worries are lifted and everything is hunky-dory. The cycle I found during this time is, Tension before the scanà No issues in the scan report à Jubilation and reliefà Tension before the next scan.

So basically, you are worried about a scan basically all the time, and you have an array of scans to go through too, Ultra Sound, NT, Anomaly, Interval Growth and so on. All you can do is keep calm and cross all your fingers and toes that nothing abnormal comes up in the scan reports. But even with all that, the worrying becomes an integral part of your wait for the baby. Or maybe life is just preparing you for the lifetime of worrying that lies ahead.