13 weeks!!

Can I officially say I'm in the 2nd trimester yet?  Not sure exactly when it starts, but I'm damn close!  I am too lazy to upload a bump picture right now, but I can say that (well, before eating anything in the morning at least) I'm more bump than bloat!! Size-wise there isn't much difference yet, because the bloat/bump are shrinking/growing at an even pace, but I can feel my uterus easily now.  Since I've been on modified bedrest I've been able to avoid addressing my regular wardrobe situation, but my jeans are permanently out.  I don't think I'll bother with one of those belly bands things....just move on to maternity pants of some sort.   R bought me some kind of waistband expander on amazon for Christmas, but there is no way they will work.

He also bought my a Boppy pillow and the baby bedding I wanted!!  I found this back when I was about 8 weeks.  I showed him but he didn't seem too interested and I figured I'd just have to file it away in an ideas folder and wait until I was far enough along to make a registry.   Well, he was paying a lot more attention than I thought!  I absolutely love it!

Bananafish Bailey bedding set.  The includes the sheets, blanket, bumper and bedskirt. 

And while we are on the nursery topic.  Here is the crib I am in love with. 

Munire Bristol Collection.  We really haven't even begun to actually look at cribs, but I found this at the same time I was looking at bedding so I saved it.  So beautiful!  R is starting to get into the nursery ideas stuff now too.  He was talking about adding crown molding to the baby's room, and possibly a chair rail depending on how we want to paint things.  I know we will go with pale blue and use flat and satin paint to create a striped look, but I don't know if we want that floor to ceiling or just half with a solid base.  I know, I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but it is fun to think about.

We are also getting very close to be fully "out".  Immediate families know, so do a few of R's close friends and select co-workers at both our jobs.  I plan on announcing to all my friends tomorrow night at a New Year's Eve party.  I hope everyone is planning to come...otherwise that will kind of crimp my plans but I think I'll go forward with the announcement anyway.  We'll probably make a few calls to extended family over the weekend and let it spread by word of mouth to cousins and such.  I was originally planning to tell my office at our staff meeting next friday and then open up our facebook pages around 14 weeks (they are locked now just in case) but with this SCH bedrest issue, I will probably have to arrange a few special meetings in the beginning of the week, which leads me to my next topic.

SCH update:

Since this obviously isn't going anywhere anytime soon, I'm just going to give it its own update section at the end of posts.  It is easier that way and all my normal updates don't sound like such downer posts with it separated out.

I've been holding steady so far this week, though I'm just waiting for that next big bleed.  I know it has to be in there somewhere.  Instead, I've been getting little changes in flow, just enough to freak me out too much to be comfortable leaving the house for very long, not to mention still being stuck with these giant pads.

I've talked with 2 of the nurses at my OBs office about follow up for this thing.  My OB is going to review the NT scans and look at the size of the hematoma, but the nurse today said it shifted to be 66mm X 54mm, so more square than the 69x34 it was before.   She said it is large, but she has seen bigger that ended in full term births, so the concern level is not increasing any more than before.  Chances are though, that I will not be returning to work full time next week either.  I'm hoping I can at least put in some half days, because I work for a small non-profit and I am not planning on returning after the baby is born, so I'm not sure how far our Board of Directors is going to want to extend sick day policies for someone who won't even be putting in 6 more months of work.  One more week will use up my remaining sick days, leaving me with 8 vacation days between now and July 1.  So much for taking those last 4 weeks before baby arrives as paid time off.

So my next u/s with the RE is tomorrow and I will get my updated bedrest instructions, check those with my OB, and go from there.



NT scan

As well as could be expected anyway. The tech was actually completely confused and thought she was looking at twins in different sacs (impossible with single embryo transfer) at first, but I'll get to that in a minute.


The baby looked great and was cooperative and relatively quiet for the first time ever. Perhaps because my poor bladder was taking up too much room. I was a little concerned at first, but we got a few wiggles and kicks by the end of the scan and the tech said the activity level was totally normal.  We had our genetic counseling session beforehand, which was a little daunting, but our risk numbers went from 1/645 for DS and 1/1152 for Trisomy 13/18 before screening, to less than 1 in 10,000 after so we are thrilled with that result. Here is the baby:

For several reasons that weren't new info today, one being an IVF w/ ICSI baby, I will need a Level II scan at about 18weeks and a fetal echocardiogram at about 22weeks.

So onto the "two sac" situation. Here is a picture from last tuesday, about 8 hours after my last major bleed. You can sort of see how one might think there were two in there.

Normally they don't give me these pictures, but the nurse printed a ton by accident so I had the whole strip...another picture that I can't find at the moment had the measurements from different angle. The SCH is 69mm by 34mm, the baby measured 59mm (CRL, not amniotic sac). So the SCH is still very large and some part of it is probably still active...the black area is either fluid or blood. It didn't look much different today, so I can only guess that means it is not going to resolve itself without another round of bleeding or more first. I see my RE one more time on Friday, so hopefully I can ask more questions then.

12 weeks!!

Even just 6 weeks ago I barely dared to hope I'd make it this far.  So much can happen in that time.  So much has happened.  But here we are!  Wave!

This is the picture we put in frames and wrapped to give R's sisters tomorrow night.  Obviously it is a baby, but I hope they can tell it is the head and a little arm.

And since I haven't posted any "bump" pictures since there hasn't been much change...here are the last 3 weeks.   I lost a bit of the bloat last week, but seemed to have gained it back for today.  There is a tiny bit of real bump in there though.

jinxed myself...here we go again.

Last night I had several little bleeds, then woke up around 1am feeling pretty awful.  I had abdominal pains that were partially gas but also something else.  I tried sleeping in different positions, but finally I felt a centralized burning pressure and I could feel the next bleed starting.  This time I passed another very large clot, about the same size as the very first one.  I woke up R and called the on call doctor at my OB to see what she recommended doing.  I still felt pretty uncomfortable, but there was no obvious cramping and the bleeding didn't seem to be getting any worse than light flow so we decided I should lay back down with my feet up and try to wait it out until morning.  Meanwhile, I'd also had a bad headache for the better part of the previous 12 hours, so sleep was alluding me on all levels.   Over an hour later, the doctor finally called me back and agreed with our decision to wait until morning.  I was not nearly as freaked out as the first time, the ER doc. had said there was another large clot in there...he just thought it was unlikely I'd pass it.

So I did get some sleep and called my RE first thing in the morning.  We went in around 9 and the baby still looks great.  The hematoma looked like a gigantic mess to me but the nurse assured me it hadn't gotten any worse and it was mostly clotted over, which is good news.  I still have a ways to go though, and I will probably continue to have bleeding for the next few weeks so I am still on bedrest somewhat.  I still have a lot of abdominal pressure, but some, if not most of that is because my uterus has started to flip up out of my pelvis, so I should be starting a real bump sometime soon.

Hanging in there.

It has been almost a week since I've had any majorly concerning bleeds *knocks on wood*.  I still don't feel particularly great, but when you spend the majority of your day on the couch or napping, I'd expect some discomfort to be normal.  My morning sickness seems to have ended...I haven't taken anything for it since last Tuesday.  Of course, no symptoms gives me reason to worry as well, but I've been playing with my home doppler and I've found the placenta quite easily (makes a sound like wind through the trees or the "sea" when listening to a seashell) and today it picked up something that registered at 145 so even though I couldn't really distinguish it from my HB mixed in with the placental noise, something else there.  My HB picks up around 120-130 and then drops steadily on the doppler to the 80s, this one went up so I know it wasn't mine.   Only 2 more days until my next u/s.

and another one

This blog is getting rather redundant, but such is my life right now.  My body did switch things up a little bit though, and sprung this one on me at 3am while I was sleeping.  Good thing I was prepared with my giant incontinence pads (yes, seriously).  This bleed was lighter than the 2nd one, so hopefully this will be a continuing trend.   It barely lasted long enough to be considered more than medium flow, so the sleep loss was more out of fear of what might come than what had passed.  That, and I'm not sure if it is mild cramping or nerves, but I get abdominal discomfort when these bleeds happen, but higher than where my uterus is sitting.   I haven't bothered to call the doctor about this one (though I'm still waiting for someone at my OB to get back to me) because it is mostly spotting again.  The primary nagging thought in the back of my mind is that somehow some of this might be leaking from around the baby, but I know there is nothing that can be done if that is the case, so I'm trying not to think about that.

11 weeks

Thursdays are the days I look forward to the most recently, because they are the days I reach a new week and I am that much closer to hopefully feeling more secure.  On Thursdays I can log in to my pregnancy forums and get to see that welcome message say something new again.

It is the little things that matter sometimes.   Today I'm feeling a little better.  I have to wonder how much of what I feel is normal pregnancy aches and changes and how much is related to the extra bleeding in my uterus.  I have noticed that I have to be much more careful when I roll over at night...making sure I turn everything together so I don't get stretching pains in my abdomen.  I'm still down 3lbs since the SCH started, but you can see the bloat.  Other than my one pair of loose work pants, I have yet to put on anything that has much of a waistband.  I am guessing my days of regular jeans are over.

another bleed and home on bedrest.

Last night as I got up from my desk at work I felt another small gush.  Luckily it was much slower than Saturday's and I had time to gather the rest of my stuff and head to the bathroom (remember my car is still in the shop, and so is my office key, so I didn't want to risk being locked out without my things).  I passed another small clot, about the size the ER doctor said I'd pass.  I wasn't panicked, more inconvenienced and worried that it would get worse, so I tried calling my OB's afterhours line.  What a clusterfuck.  I had to push option #2 at least 4 times until it actually put me through to the physician on call, who of course wasn't available and then it started asking for a 10 digit code.  WTF.   Thank god for my RE's office, who has a real person answering the phone at all times, and the regular nurses there until 6.  I spoke to a nurse and she offered to wait for us and do a scan.  I love those guys so much...I know they stayed late just for me.  Baby stills look good and super active.  I had another slightly larger gush as I got out of the car at the doctors.  So glad I made DH swipe a few of the diaper sized pads from the ER, because my pants and my winter coat would have been done in without one.

Anyway, the bleed area had changed shape since Monday, and most of the active bleed was shifting directly toward my cervix, so the nurse decided that I should stay home from work until next week's appointment, in hopes that we can get this thing healed over and on its way to reabsorption.   They didn't seem any more concerned than before and I am doing okay today.  Last night was rough though.  I passed two more small clots and generally felt like crap.  I always swore that I'd never say I didn't like being pregnant, but I definitely hit a low point last night as I tried to fall asleep.  I never expected easy, but I didn't expect it to be this hard emotionally and physically this early.  I think the tipping point is that I don't have a timeframe or point to work toward that is in the near future.  2nd tri won't necessarily change any of this, and that is no fun at all, but at least I'll be that much closer to having an outside baby.

baby still looks good

I called my RE this morning with long list of questions, and they offered to just have me come in so they could take a look at things.  The baby looked great, we were able to a good strong kick, a profile shot with a little nose, and the spine before it returned to it's bouncing and flip routine.  The heartbeat is back up to 178, but the nurse said that was normal and I think their equipment was acting up as well.

She said the bleed from the SCH was substantial, but the good news was that it was over my cervix and away from the placenta.  I could see it as soon as she inserted the wand...a long semi-circle of black.  One tiny bit of the placenta is lifted up, but it is nothing to be concerned about.  I will mostly likely have continued bleeding for a while though, and there is one rather large clot in there that she said I probably will not pass.   This week was supposed to be our last week with them, but they agreed to do an u/s next week as well, so between that, the NT scan on 27th, and my next OB appt on the 5th....I should be covered until 14 weeks, hopefully plenty of time to start breathing normally again.

Huge scare last night.

***TMI and graphic warning for those that are squeamish***

Last night as I was watching TV, I felt a warm gush, hurried to the bathroom and passed a clot almost half the size of my fist.  There was no pain or warning whatsoever.  Horrified, I stared at it, trying to decide if it could be the baby and if it was possible to have a complete miscarriage that fast with no cramps.  I went and got a baggie from the kitchen, but I couldn't bring myself to find out for sure what it was, exactly, I had passed.   R was running an errand and I knew he could be as far as 45 minutes away and my car broke on Wednesday (not that I was in any shape to drive myself).   I decided it would be better to secure a ride to the ER from someone who was closer before panicking him.  I called my mother (no answer) and R's parents and told them what was going on.  It turned out R was much closer to home than I thought, so he was able to take me.

At this point there didn't seem to be more blood or fluid, so I had put a pad on an laid on the couch until R came home.  When he came in I informed him of the clot and he retrieved it.  I do not know, nor did I ask, if he even looked at it.  At that point I didn't want to know...it was better to cling to hope.  We headed to the ER, I managed to walk in while he parked the car, and felt another huge gush before I could even make it to the counter.  I cut in front of the people waiting as politely as I could and informed the nurse I was 10 weeks and bleeding a lot.  They took me and the towel I was carrying and sat me in a wheelchair in a hallway and got my vitals.  Turns out, I should have gone to labor and delivery, but all we could think of was emergency = ER.  So finally after 20 minutes of nurses trying to get an escort to wheel me the one mile of hallways to L&D, I had to ask when I was getting moved and one of them took me.  Luckily, my bleeding seemed to subside as long as I was sitting.

We got to L&D and by this time I was starting to feel abdominal cramps, but they felt like intestinal pains so I wasn't sure what to think.  Honestly, I wasn't thinking much at all.  I had gone numb shortly after it all started, though my blood pressure was 138 (normally 110).  I talked to one of the REs on the phone and he said it was very unusual for someone at my stage in pregnancy to have a miscarriage this quickly when we'd seen a healthy baby twice this past week.

They finally got us in a room and I changed into a gown, passed some more tissue, though this was clearly just blood, and waited for the doctor.  About an hour after we initially arrived in the ER, the doctor came in and started the exam.  I held R's hand and stared at the ceiling, so sure it was over.  I looked at the doctor's face, trying to read some typed of emotion, but he was a pro.  He said he needed to take some measurements, but he wanted to show us what he was looking at, and he turned the screen to show us  a large blob.  I asked "Is that my baby?" and said "thank you god" and started to cry when he said yes.  I asked about the heartbeat just as he said "right here".  It was beating away at 161.  I looked up at R and had tears running down his face as well.

Our diagnosis - subchorionic hematoma.  The majority of it was what I had passed first, but he said there was still another small clot, about an inch and a half in size, remaining and that I may or may not pass it, but that I should expect bleeding for the next few days.  Today it does seem a bit lighter, I did not sleep well at all.  I was terrified to get up and go to the bathroom during the night for fear of another huge gush, but I did, and other than what seemed like some medium menstrual flow level blood, there were no more incidents.  Today I am taking it easy and I will probably take off work tomorrow just to give it an extra day to heal and give me time to speak to my doctors again.  I'm hoping they will extend my monitoring period, because I think this week was my final week with the RE.

We are remaining positive, but this certainly knocked me down a few rungs.  What little security I had is gone and it will take a while to build it back up, but for right now we are ok.

10 weeks

I've made it to double digits!!  Even this far it sometimes doesn't seem real.  I'm so grateful to have made it a quarter of the way through.  Part of me worries that I'm spending too much time looking ahead to the next week, praying I'll make it, rather than enjoying the present.  I'm hoping once I hit 2nd tri I'll really be able to relax.  I don't want this whole pregnancy to pass me by and realize I just wished the time away and rushed through it.  It sometimes feels like a race, and if I slow down, stop, or heaven forbid, fall....I will get left in the dust and never make it back on my feet.   I'm trying to focus on more personal happy points in our pregnancy, rather than just medical milestones...so week 12 is when we will be telling R's family, and the start of 2nd tri is when we will be telling all my friends (hopefully they will all make it to the New Year's Eve party).

We had our first monthly appt. with my OB.  As much as infertility sucks, I am spoiled rotten with my RE's ultrasounds.  The OB brought in a little portable one and did an abdominal scan....I could hardly see the baby!  It didn't help that the little guy was bouncing all over the place and trying to escape the wand, but I can't imagine my only picture being this blurry indistinguishable blob.  I'm guessing if I had been a regular patient they would of had a better machine, but maybe not.   I also was able to find the heartbeat on our home doppler last night.  I feel a little guilty because R wasn't there, but I didn't think I'd have success either.  It was very cool to hear.

Saw the baby move!!

We had an absolutely wonderful u/s today.  At first we could just see the arms and legs, but then the baby started wiggling around!  I can't even put into words how amazing it was to watch.  I could have stayed there all day.  And we could see little hands!!  So adorable.   I flipped this pic so you can look at the baby rightside up instead of sideways.  You can see the head, then little hands, part of the body, and then the legs/feet.

9 week u/s

Here is the photo from 9 weeks.  I put little lines pointing to the arms, but the nurse really didn't make much of an effort to get a good shot.  I go back in tomorrow for the next u/s with my RE, and then again on Friday with my OB, so hopefully we'll get some better pics soon.

9 weeks

It is hard to believe I've made it this far already.  Our u/s yesterday went well, but we had the same nurse as last week so none of the warm fuzzies we get from other nurses.  The heart rate is up to 181 now and it should drop and level off within the next few weeks.  During the scan we could see where the arms and legs were, but unluckily the pictures we got don't show it too well (I'll upload it later, waiting for R to scan it). 

I finally gave in and bought B-natal vitamins/pops for the nausea.  I've been taking one in the morning and at night and I think they are helping a little.  Last night I still couldn't bring myself to eat anything for dinner, so chocolate milk it was.  I also had my first migraine since being pregnant, so I spent the majority of the day home in bed since the only thing I was told I could take was extra strength Tylenol.  Since I knew that wouldn't even touch the pain I didn't even bother.

I did break down and take my first "bump" picture yesterday.  Obviously there is nothing showing yet, but I figured 9 weeks would be a good place to start so I can see the changes when they do happen.  Amazingly enough, I was able to get a picture that didn't make me look too much like a bloated whale.