Catching up

It’s been a crazy week and a half since my very brief and not very informative post regarding our second u/s and it’s time for me to catch up. As I mentioned previously, I was quite honestly fearing the worst, right up until I got to work, at which point I ceased to be nervous or afraid anymore. I was not nervous for the ride over to the office and only briefly got nervous right before the tech began the u/s.

Once again, the initial angle of the wand was just so, so that the very first image that we got was what appeared to be an empty gestational sac. Before I could even begin to process that image, she moved the wand every so slightly and there was our baby. I couldn’t see the heartbeat as quickly this time and before I could even worry about it, she said “There’s your baby and its heartbeat.” She turned on the microphone and we could hear the heart beating away at 173 lovely beats per minute. The relief was amazing. Despite the bleeding, everything was OK. She did the measurements and proclaimed that the baby was measuring at 8 weeks and 4 days, which was right on target with our retrieval date. More relief.

She took other measurements and showed me a black spot on the u/s that she said was a pool of blood. She said that bleeding that I had the day before was from this pool and not from the baby, which was a relief to hear. She said it wasn’t extremely big, but it also wasn’t extremely small and it was something that we would need to keep an eye on. The blood would either be absorbed by my body, or expelled, which would be in the form of bleeding or spotting. Just knowing that there was a reason for the bleeding and that there would likely be more definitely helped to ease my concerns. She put me on pelvic rest and told me to take it easy.

She had me get dressed and then we talked about how the office works and the various screening tests that we could do. She gave me a copy of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” info on the hospital that I will deliver at, and information about all of the doctors at the office. I guess with a heartbeat at 8.5 weeks, they consider you officially pregnant. She also gave me our official due date of February 18th, 2009.

We made an appointment to see the nurse practitioner at 10.5 weeks and also made our appointment for the 12 week NT scan and testing. And that was that. We went to breakfast and it was a completely surreal experience. I just kept repeating over and over again “I can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it.” After so many months of waiting for this to happen, it’s so difficult to actually come to terms with it when it finally does.

But all was well, and I actually was beginning to enjoy my time being pregnant. I knew that we would be vacation for 10 of the next 15 days until our next appointment, so I was sure the time would go quickly. There was no u/s scheduled for our next appointment, but I was really hoping that given my bleeding issue, that we could squeeze a quick one in anyway.

Then came Friday, which brought lots and lots of spotting, though this time it was dark brown. I knew that more bleeding or spotting was likely to happen, but it still caught me off guard. I did my best not to worry and mostly enjoyed the day. By Saturday the spotting was gone and Sunday was spot free too. Monday brought more spotting which was gone by Tuesday, but made yet another reappearance bright and early on Wednesday morning. By that point, I’d had enough. I didn’t want “chance” not being able to have an u/s at our next appointment, so I called the clinic and explained my situation to them and they were able to actually schedule me in for an u/s before my appointment with the NP.

So for the time being, it’s back to being a waiting game, though I am so much more relaxed at this stage of the game. I have an explanation for the spotting, which bring me great comfort. I know that the pool of blood (which she never actually called a subchronic hematoma, but that’s what I’m guessing it is) can put me at a higher risk for complications, but for now I’m not worrying about that. It’s time to enjoy this.