Monthly Archives: June 2012

I’m quite large. Me pants don’t fit. Me bra don’t fit. Large Marge, that’s me.

I was waiting for blood tests today and there was a girl there waiting to do the blood part of her NT scan. She was tiny. Like white short shorts, flat tummy, no bust tiny. 3 weeks further along and I looked 6 weeks further than her.

I suspect she is having an easier time keeping the news to herself…

My secret is pretty much all hanging out.

Today you measure 8W1D and your heart is beating like a champ. You are now only 3 days behind as you’ve grown a week and a day since last Monday.

If we hadn’t seen you till now, we would never have been on pins and needles. The ultrasound tech at the clinic wouldn’t refer to you as our current miracle baby. Today would have been a typical first ‘8 week’ ultrasound (give or take) and everything would have been in the acceptable range.

The doctor said that you’re perfectly normal today but that we’ll have another look in two weeks, just because we know…

If that ultrasound looks good he says we can be pretty confident that we’ll make it through the first trimester.

I asked the doctor what we would have seen if we’d gone to blast stage in the lab. Because we just had 2, we would have transferred what we had, but we likely wouldn’t have had high hopes for you. You would probably have been a bit behind right from the start. If we had many eggs, we likely would have overlooked you, as you likely wouldn’t have made it to freeze and certainly wouldn’t have looked like our best chance for a baby.

But here we are. Against all odds it seems like you’re doing just fine. At least for today. If you really do become an actual, real life, in my arms baby, I hope this ability to overcome somewhat underwhelming odds becomes a part of who you are. You’re pretty impressive. You know, for something the size of a gummy bear.

I really hope I get to meet you in about 31 weeks.

Yesterday was another ‘work from home’ day as there was more spotting. Just one day. Not red. But seriously, I’m not really enjoying living day by day here. Olive measured no larger than 7w6d on the ultrasound that caught our missed miscarriage last summer. Given that yesterday was 8w/8w1d depending on how you’re counting I was not amused.

I have no idea what we’ll see at our weekly “is this thing gonna work out or isn’t” ultrasound on Monday.

We’ll be just about 8.5 weeks. Maybe Obi will be floating around in there, heart beating way, measuring 8w-8w3or4d.

Sadly, I’m not holding out much hope that will be the case.

I’m more of an in or out kind of person. This ‘wait and see’ and ‘touch and go’ – it’s too much.

Last week after our ultrasound, I was pretty much convinced Obi’s days were numbered. Then on Friday, my symptoms disappeared completely. No more nausea, no more sore chest. I sprung out of bed right as rain and thought huh, it’s like I’m not even pregnant. Then I freaked the F%$# out. Nurse at RE’s office moved my ultrasound up to Monday from Wednesday (bless her little heart).

Then my back started to ache and spasm and I was basically sitting around all weekend waiting to miscarry, hoping I’d make it to my ultrasound so I could at least see the baby and say goodbye.

I was awake half the night with back cramps and front cramps. All-in-all an unpleasant weekend.

Then, this morning at the ultrasound, the tech pushed and shoved and prodded and poked with the abdominal thingy. I was sure she was looking for something she couldn’t find. But, low and behold she turned the screen and said “Here’s the baby’s heartbeat!”. I cried. I have never been so happy to see a little blinky light in my entire life.

Obi’s heartbeat was 144 – a perfectly good rate for development age. Bebe is still measuring behind by 3-5 or so days (depending on how you count) but grew a full week in the week since the ultrasound.

My RE said “it’s good news today.” He reminded me that there’s no guarantee of a perfect outcome but we should celebrate this little win. He’s having us back for another ultrasound next week and likely the week after that (if we make it that far) to see if Obi catches up, stretches out (may be curled up and measuring small for that reason) or gives us reason to believe there is an issue.

When we learned about losing Olive, she measured 7w6d. Technically that’s tomorrow or Wednesday in this pregnancy. Hopefully Obi will measure 8 weeks when we see him again and we can take some comfort in that.

It’s not that I thought it would be easy, but I sure thought it would be easier than this.

The doc actually used those words. No real answers from the ultrasound today. There is growth, but baby is measuring 3-4 days behind. There is a heartbeat – but it’s 104. They would like to see it above 110. She said this one is in the grey area. It could go either way.

Sigh.

Back next week on Wednesday to see if Obi hangs on.

At 10 am we find out if Obi has a heartbeat and is viable. Though I now know that may not count for much in the long run.

Still, we’re hoping for a small victory today.

I’ll check in when I’m home.

Went to our ultrasound today. We saw the gestational sac but we’re told it’s too early to see anything else. Back Monday for round 2. There is no intrauterine bleeding and it’s not ectopic. Just one little Obi sac that seems to be measuring on track.
The little spinny wheel at the Doc told them I was 5w4d-5w5d. They also said that it’s too early to say everything is fine, but at this point, there are no indications that it isn’t fine.
They did blood tests too, waiting on those numbers.
Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait.

So we’re having an emergency ultrasound today. In about an hour we’ll have a look at what’s going on in there.

Keep your fingers crossed. Though at this point, it’s not really a luck thing.

Hope you’re ok in there Obi.

Spotting. Didn’t have it with either of my two previous pregnancies.
But this am woke up to the dreaded S word.

Emailed the RE and was told it can be normal. Trying to leave the internet alone as the stories I read had good endings and bad endings and I just want to focus on Obi hanging on and not think too much about the alternative.

I have a bad feeling though. I don’t think this is going to end well.

Sigh. I guess that’s the thing about long shots.

You’re constantly reminded that a long shot is just that.

So, the pity blood test numbers are in – pity as in they are taking pity on me and my basketcasoity and are letting me come for once-a-week beta tests until my ultrasound on the 14th.
The number yesterday? Around 3300?3800? (I have the exact number written down at work). The initial doubling time was 38 hours and has slowed to 43 hours but it still quite quick as they expect it to take more than 48 hours for the doubling.
So everything is going just fine. Technically anyway. I’m not doing all that well with this one. I thought I was a worry-wart with Shane. I had no idea how crazy I could actually get.
Turns out – pretty crazy.
I’m not sure how I’m actually going to make it through to…well, to “Ihavenoideawhattoexpectandthatistheworstpartofallthisbutatsomepointwewilleitherhaveababyorwewillloseababyandthentheworrywillbedonecomewhatmay”
That time seems a long way from now. So the beta and the anxiety are both rising.
So is the size of my bo.som and the size of the waves I seem to be riding on at least a few hours a day causing a rather pronounced feeling of sea-sickness.
5w2d today.
Tomorrow is another day.
Less than 2 weeks to ultrasound now.
Deep breaths.