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When patients make it to 12 or 13 weeks gestation, they graduate. We have a small ceremony and give them gifts. They celebrate freedom from taking their progesterone shots. We make a DVD of their baby doing back flips in their final first trimester ultrasound so they can watch it over and over. They say goodbye to us as they transition to their OB, relieved to be out of the first trimester, usually the most common period of pregnancy loss.
For Irene, she was not entirely free. She had to stay on her heparin and aspirin. Over the past two months, we had seen her every week and the pattern was consistent. We would show her the baby’s heartbeat on the ultrasound and she would be so relieved and happy. And then, at home, over the course of the week, the fear and anxiety would gradually gnaw at her insides so that by the time she came back for her next ultrasound, she was a complete nervous wreck.
Now on her last visit, she seemed panicked about saying goodbye to us. I knew it was because she realized that with her OB, she would be only getting visits every 3-4 weeks, which meant to her 3-4 weeks of not knowing how the baby was. I promised her she could drop by any day for a quick heartbeat check ultrasound all the way until 20 weeks when she would start feeling the baby move. At that time, she would have her own way of reassuring herself that the baby was fine.
We kept in touch with her less and less, until one day, we got the call from her husband that she had delivered a beautiful 7 pound 6 ounce baby girl, thanks to the benefits of heparin!
