Relief

Despite the fact that I’d already had six good looking ultrasounds to date, I was terrified going into today’s NT scan. I think three miscarriages just makes you scared to death of all ultrasounds.

Our practice sends us to a maternal fetal medicine office that is part of the same university health system for first trimester screenings and anatomy scans. So I’d been here twice before with Bella’s pregnancy and once to confirm my second miscarriage (the one where the baby’s heart kept beating even though it stopped growing for almost two weeks). After a ridiculous 35 minute wait and watching every other person get called back including three people that came in after us, we were finally called back and the sonographer was so sweet and apologetic that I couldn’t stay mad. I told her if she gave us good news we’d call it even.

She quickly proclaimed “there is the good looking heartbeat”. Baby R was also almost immediately in position to get the nuchal translucency measurement and I could see that it was going to be good. The sonographer pointed out the nasal bone (absence of a nasal bone is a marker for downs syndrome) and then took the measurement. It came back at 1.3 and anything under 3.0 is considered good!

Then she looked at the rest of the anatomy where she noted that everything looked normal for this point in pregnancy. She did find two fibroids and noted the adhesion that Dr. P. wanted to remove before this pregnancy. After the sonographer printed off some pictures and filed her report, the physician came in to review everything. She said the fibroids were small and do most of their growing in the first trimester. I had three with Bella’s pregnancy and their degeneration caused major pain so I’ll definitely be on the lookout for that again this time. She also said that the adhesion is far away from the baby and as the uterus grows it will only seem smaller and further away.

All in all, I was very happy with the results. I figured the fibroids would make another appearance so that wasn’t a surprise and thankfully the adhesion is far away from baby. I asked the sonographer if she wanted to make an unofficial gender guess and she said that they aren’t allowed…so so much for that!

I was so happy to watch Baby R bounce around the screen. Baby’s legs were crossed and arms were flapping around. Very hopeful that all continues to go well and we’ll meet this little person in May!

hand on the head!

Just so thankful for as Lance jokingly called it “three hours of relief”. But it has already been over four hours and I still feel happy. So yay!

 

Still beating

We are back from St. John. The trip was a great distraction from all of my pregnancy anxiety and fears. But then this morning, at 5 am, the terror all struck at once. I’d been feeling so positive with the nausea over the past few days and then I remembered that I’ve felt positive about things before and been blindsided.

So I was a nervous wreck as usual heading into my appointment today. The wonderful fellow at the RE’s office who did my last two ultrasounds did this one as well. She immediately pulled it up and right away I could see that the baby was bigger than at 6 weeks. I didn’t see a clear flicker but she did and said so right away. She then played it for me and it was beautiful at 164 bpm.

Baby measured 7 weeks and 6 days. I think I’m 7 weeks 5 days and by their count that I don’t understand I’m 7 weeks 3 days, so the measurement is right on. I’d had this big fear of measuring a few days behind and being stuck in limbo so this was a huge relief.

Anyway, here is Baby R!

7 weeks 5 days (measuring 7 weeks 6 days)

After the ultrasound they ran a thyroid panel (which will be done every 4 weeks throughout pregnancy) and re-checked my progesterone at my request. We’ll see how those results go and if they need to increase my synthroid.

This is a huge relief getting past the two consecutive losses from this spring and summer. The loss before Bella was after 9 weeks and that baby also measured ahead with a strong heart beat, so I definitely don’t feel out of the woods just yet. But for today I’m happy and can at least breathe easy for a little while.

Heartbeat

So much for not getting an ultrasound before leaving for vacation. I’ve now had two.

I’ve been really concerned the past three days because I’ve developed some decent low back pain. Depending where you look, low back pain is either a sign of miscarriage (although I haven’t had it with mine) or a normal pregnancy symptom. But the back pain combined with the continuing brown discharge and our impending week-long vacation far away from the RE’s office made me call in again today.

The fellow, who has been super nice, called back and asked if I could come in right then because she had a small opening in her schedule. I hustled over with a knot quickly forming in my stomach. I wanted to know before we got on that airplane if there was no hope.

But, after a few worrisome moments of her scanning around, she found the fetal pole and heartbeat. I had to remind myself that as an RE fellow she probably isn’t doing a ton of early prenatal ultrasounds. Plus, she is using a portable ultrasound machine which doesn’t give a picture nearly as clear as the one my OB’s office uses.

But it was there. Measuring 6 weeks 0 days, which is 2 days behind by my count and right on schedule by her count. The heartbeat was 110 bpm which she said is excellent at 6 weeks. The gestational sac was measuring 7 weeks 2 days, and I’m honestly not sure if that is an issue, but if so, she didn’t mention it.

She again looked at my ovaries but saw nothing causing the bleeding. The only thing she saw that could potentially be the source was a small black area near the gestational sac. She said it almost looked like a sac that never formed. However after looking back at some of my other ultrasounds i’ve had black spots like that before that were never mentioned. So who knows.

Now I get to leave for vacation a little calmer. I’m obviously not out of the woods since we’ve seen a heartbeat at 6 weeks with all three of our losses. The last two both stopped growing at 6 weeks 1 day, so unfortunately we haven’t passed that milestone either. But, the last one had only a weak heartbeat (that wasn’t even measured) so at least this one has a good looking heartbeat.

Just hoping that when we come back in for the next ultrasound baby has continued to grow and at that point we’d be well passed our first milestone.

IUP

We have a confirmed intrauterine pregnancy.

Let me explain why I know this.

On Friday, I started having small amounts of brown discharge. I was immediately terrified since two of my miscarriages started this way. It tapered off, which was a very good sign, but combining that with my lack of symptoms and I was just extremely worried.

So I called the nurse at the RE’s office first thing this morning and she asked if I wanted to come in for an ultrasound this morning to see if things looked on track. By my count I’m 5 weeks 5 days and by their count I’m 5 weeks 3 days (which I don’t really understand…but she showed me their little wheel today which doesn’t match up with those online calculators, but I digress). Either way, I spent the next 90 minutes super nervous before heading over for the ultrasound.

Funny that I was so nervous since we’ve always seen things looking pretty good at these early scans.

Anyway, the very nice fellow took me back almost immediately and found the gestational sac super quickly. We saw the yolk sac but nothing else. She poked around measuring my ovaries (not sure why…but they were both 28 mm). The gestational sac measured 15 mm and the yolk sac was 3 mm. She was very happy with what she saw and said she saw nothing concerning and that was as much development as we should see at 5 weeks 3 days or 5 weeks 5 days. There were no signs of bleeding that explain the discharge but there weren’t with Bella’s pregnancy either. So I just have to hope we are repeating how things went with Bella (minus the preterm labor).

So the plan now is to wait another two weeks for our follow up scan, the Monday following our return from vacation. I’m hoping for some strong symptoms to set in and put my mind at ease over the next two weeks.

It’s a brief sigh of relief but of course I wish we had seen a fetal pole. Let’s just hope and pray it is there with a heartbeat in two weeks.

Baby R is a….

Yesterday was quite the day. Our anatomy scan appointment was scheduled for 7:30 am. I figured that I wouldn’t sleep very well the night before, but I actually slept o.k. When the alarm went off at 6:30 I jumped out of bed, forced some breakfast down (hard with butterflies) and we were on our way. Luckily, the ultrasound tech called us back right at 7:30. She seemed very experienced and was great about explaining what she was looking at. She immediately showed us the heart beating, and since Baby R was giving us a good view of the heart, she went right into exploring the heart and taking pictures. She pointed out the four chambers, and a bunch of other stuff that I don’t remember, saying that all in the heart looked very good. After almost 10 minutes on the heart, she realized Baby R was in a good position to check the gender/measure the femurs. As soon as we saw the potty shot, both Lance and I knew that Baby R was a GIRL!

nothing between the legs = GIRL!

It was so obvious that we could tell before she even said it. After seeing a nice looking heart and learning the gender, I really relaxed and was able to enjoy the rest of the ultrasound. She measured the brain, checked out fingers and toes, and looked at the kidneys. The tech also explained that at least one kidney was working because Baby R’s bladder went from full to empty during the course of the exam.

legs curled up

showing us her fingers!

a little foot

Next the tech moved on to check the placenta and the cord. We were relieved to find a three vessel cord and a nice connection into the placenta. My fibroids were measured and while each one had grown about a centimeter (4x4x4 cm now!), they are away from the placenta and cervix and should cause no harm. Baby R then started flipping over so that she was face down. Luckily, we had already gotten most of the needed measurements.

face down

We even got some cool 4-D shots.

playing coy i.e. “talk to the hand”

cord in front of the face

just chillin’

All in all, it was a very memorable day. I am so excited about being able to refer to Baby R as a “she” and after a totally clean scan (the doctor talked to us for less than a minute…always a good sign!), I feel positive that we will be meeting our little girl in 5 short months.

All of this good news was also enough for us to let everyone know that we are expecting. We had a ton of fun creating a gender reveal video that we emailed to our families and posted on facebook, and it feels great to let our friends and family share in our excitement.