Mountains, Valleys, Mountains

For the average person, when you find out you are pregnant, you are on a mountain top. The only way one can experience a mountain top is by experiencing a valley, and vice a versa.
On my way home from work yesterday Shannon called me histerical letting me know that she was having problems, major problems. In fact, and for her sake I won't share the details, she was all but sure that we had had a miscarriage. I told her that I would stay on the phone with her until I got home, but she said that it was ok, and I raced home to be with her.
When I got home she was a mess. She was sure the baby was gone. I tried to consol her as she let me know she had called the doctor and that the doctor wanted to potentially see her the next day.
Here's where my making fun of a coworker for being paranoid about her kids has backfired on me. I didn't like the answer of tomorrow. I called my sister-in-law Kelsey, who works in the OB ward where we will be deliving hopefully one day. She told us that we should go to the ER to get things checked out.
I called a couple people to ask them to pray, and called our parents to let them know about what was happening. My dad could tell that we were not in good shape so he and my mom came and took us to the hospital. Later they were relieved by Shannon's parents. One thing I have to say, it's great to have family and friends who are so supportive.
While making some calls I had a breakdown when I was on the phone with one of my best friends Matt. After getting off the phone I broke. I laid on the couch, put my face in the pillow to muffle the sound and just lost it. I went up, held Shannon, and she saw that I was visibly upset. I thought it would bother her, upset her more, that she would want me to be strong for her. She told me she was happy to see me upset because she needed to know that I was upset too.
We got down to the ER about 6PM, having already thought the worst. They did the best they could do with the few people they had, but it was painfully slow. It was almost an hour and a half until we saw anyone to get blood drawn, three viles worth. We waited until almost 11 pm until we had a room and saw the doctor. During all this time Shannon laid there on the chairs, with small tears in her eyes, and often stairing into what seemed to be a bleak future. I sat nearby with the parents, every once in a while sitting on the dirty floor next to her holding her hand, running my fingers through her hair, letting her know that whatever happened, we would make it through it.
When the doctor got to see us, he was great. He kept things light but didn't make light of the situation. He congratulated us. I was confused and asked him, are we still at congratulations status? He told us the HCG was around 53,000, which he said was good. He told us two things, that either we were farther than we thought, or he wanted to know if we had twins in our families. This number sounded great, but it wasn't tangible.
Some time around 12:30 AM we had an ultrasound. I looked at these cloud-like images where I saw a picture of what looked like faces, but at this point that definitly couldn't be. Then she showed us some fluttering. She said that it was the baby's heart and it was beating at a good 125 beats per minute. What a relief. Back on the mountain top. I have seen that beating heart in my mind literally hundreds of times since last night. It has been the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life to this point. We got home and hit bed by 2 AM. And Shannon has just been taking it easy as I watch over her.