Despite fears to the contrary, the babies are still there.

The ghosts of infertility have a habit of popping into my mind, especially in the weeks between doctor visits. Since Februrary of last year, I’d been seeing my reproductive endocrinologist (and associated nurses) once every few days. That’s not an exaggeration.

Consider that one menstrual cycle lasts about a month and that each month, doctors are trying various methods of assisted reproductive technology, or ART, to get you pregnant. To get to this point, we had one attempt at interuterine insemination before another one that was canceled because I ovulated too soon. I then had two more unsuccessful attempts. With each cycle, there’s an initial ultrasound to be sure there are no lingering cysts. Then, there’s another to check the size of any resulting follicles produced from oral medications. (I took Clomid.) If the size isn’t large enough for an ovualation “trigger shot,” you go back to the doctor in a couple days for another ultrasound. If the sizes are right, you get the shot and then return a day or so later for the actual insemination. There’s a two week break in there — time before you can take a pregnancy test. When — as in my case — the test is negative, you go back and start the process over again.

And every time, you expect to be expecting. By the time we were moving ahead with the more invasive in-vitro fertilization, which I cried about having to do, my expectations weren’t as high. And it was a lot to endure for fear of failure yet again.

So now, with two and three weeks between visits, I’ll admit that I’ve been freaking out. What if I’m really just getting fat? What if we go back and there are no babies? What if I’ve done something (or not) to make the pregnancy go away?

It’s possible that those are normal pre-whale questions that everybody has. I’m sure it’s connected to the security I had in constant visits, especially between my third and eighth weeks. We’ve got microscopic and ultrasound pictures at three days before transfer, in utero but pre-implanation, and at four, seven and eight weeks. Internally, the last four weeks were murder until last week’s appointment.

(Because of my “advanced” maternal age of 35, the risk for chromosonal defects is higher. We agreed to recommended genetic testing for information purposes, not to “play God.” Just FYI. We learned a lot worth another educational post for another time. Feel free to ask questions, though …)

Though it was in the geneticist’s office for first trimester screening, we saw both babies active with Rufus face up and Reefus face down. It looked like they were dancing, and clearly, they thought no one was watching.