9 week ultrasound!

So I royally botched things this morning and we dropped C off with MIL, drove all the way to the RE, only to find out my appt was at 11:45, not 9:45.  And of course R took time off work to make it.  Luckily MIL was fine with just keeping C for the morning, so home we went and came back at 11:45.

Well, I thought my RE was pretty up date as it was, but one of their ultrasound machines died last week, so they had to replace with a brand new one.  OMG this thing was amazing!  It was literally like watching one of those 3D computer animated fetal videos on the internet.  The slightest twist of the wand and I could see all sides of my baby.  A-maz-ing.  We could see the arms and legs wiggling around and the beginnings of facial features.   We got several awesome pictures too.

 This one kind of illustrates the amazing 3Dness of the u/s...you can really see that little arm in front of the body.

 

and look at the clarity of this one....that is the umbilical cord.

 

 

and finally, a shot that shows the brain development.

 

On a whim I also asked where my placenta was located.  I don't put much of any stock into gender prediction theories, but there is one out that supposedly is fairly accurate.  Dr. Ramzi claims that the location of the placenta at 6 weeks can be used to predict gender, with left locations = girl and right = boy.  I have no clue where mine was with C other than it was posterior, but this one is high toward the top of the fundus (uterus) and to the left.   Unluckily his theory is not quite as useful after 8 weeks because the placenta shifts as the uterus grows, but we'll see.

9 weeks!

One of these days I'm going to bend down to pick up a toy or feed the cats and I'm not going to be able to stand up again.  Yep, the sciatica has arrived.  I called my OB for a referral to physical therapy, only to find out the super convenient place I went last time was moved down by the hospital...another 30 minutes farther away.  Not a huge deal, but I'd rather not have one more reason to go down that way frequently.   I also really liked my therapist last time too.  I know she lives locally and we've got a mutual friend on FB through the local moms group, so I sent her a message asking if she still practiced locally.  Hopefully it isn't too creepy.

Overall I feel a little better now.  Still exhausted and not sleeping real well.  Last night it was mostly the back pain that kept me up, I couldn't lift my butt up to roll over at once (twisting is a big no-no because of round ligament pain).   No bump yet whatsoever, and thankfully I'm back down a few pounds.  A few pounds of what I'm not sure, because I still feel pretty puffy out front by the end of the day.   I went ahead and took my first progress pic, because this is where I started with C.  I promise I'm not this oddly shaped...I operating in semi fuck effort mode when I took this.

heard the heart beat!

I'd seen other 2nd time (or more) moms on the Bump finding heart beats earlier this time through so I thought I'd give it a shot.  No luck yesterday but after about 10 minutes of searching I found it loud and clear at 171!   Of course I went downstairs and tried to find it again so R could hear and had no luck, but I am so, so glad we are far enough along to have that extra reassurance here at home.

8 week u/s



Starting to look like a baby in there!  I had the good sense to schedule this u/s early in the morning, so no sitting around worrying.  Covered some of the usual pregnancy stuff, then did the scan.  No movement yet, but I could see that little heart beating away at 175!  The little white arrow is pointing to an arm bud...the tech showed me both the arm and leg buds, but unluckily the yolk sac is still visible and blocked a good picture shot.

 

 

Last week I set up my appts with my OB (did I already post that? I can't remember crap these days) for Feb 11th and 21st I think.  First appt is just paperwork, 2nd one is with my actual Dr. (midwife actually...I've got both the midwife I always saw pre-pregnancy for ladypart appts and the OB from my last pregnancy assigned to me this time).  So I got my medical records from the RE just in case they get lost in fax translation.  Naturally I looked through them...always a mistake.  C is here and healthy now, but random bloodwork levels were off over the past few years...indicating thrombosis at one point before my 1st IFV and rubella or lack of immunity to it last May!  The thrombosis thing must of been a fluke because it was normal in May, but I'll ask about the Rubella thing next week.  I'm not worried about it, but it goes to show non-medical people shouldn't try to read medical stuff.

 

Oh, and speaking of not being able to remember stuff...I really felt like I was losing my mind last night.  I couldn't find my car keys anywhere.  Both R and I searched the whole house, took flashlights and checked outside around my car and in it, etc.   This morning I picked up my purse to leave and they were under it....I watched R pick up my purse to check inside and I did that myself as well.  Neither of us saw them there.  WTF.   Now I'm only missing a giant bottle of Tylenol that I bought at BJs last week.  Chances are at this point that I left it in the damn cart.

 

On a much, much more somber note, I found out today that an e-friend was admitted to labor & delivery at 23 weeks and 3 days, 90% effaced with twins.  At this point they are just waiting for things to take their course and everyone is praying for a miracle for them.  If you have any spare T&Ps, please send them to these wonderful deserving people tonight.

8 weeks

You know that point when you can't decide if food will make you feel better or result in immediate puke?  No?  Only that one time when you were reaaaalllly drunk?   Well, that was me last night, and again this morning.  Food does help actually....for about 45 minutes and then I feel full and barfy.   It actually went away for a few days earlier this week, so much so that I was freaking out by the time I had my u/s on Thursday.  Thankfully one of my favorite nurses did this scan, so as soon as she walked in I felt better.  Everything looked good and on track, measuring 7 weeks 3 days exactly with a heart beat of 145!

 My bad feeling that something wasn't right turned out to just be slightly misplaced, and in the long run it wasn't a big deal, but the perfect plans to tell my side of the family were botched a little.  About an hour before dinner my mother called to say that she wasn't feeling great and my youngest sister was sick.  Now, my youngest is learning disabled and a chronic illness faker if there is something she doesn't want to do, so at first I was rather pissed, but supposedly she did want to come for dinner, so maybe it was some miraculous 24 hr stomach flu with no actual throwing up.   Anyway, my older sister and my father came and we decided to go forward as planned.  Of course, when C handed my sister the book she didn't really get it at first, but they were both thrilled when they caught on.  I ended up emailing my mom this picture and had her open it while I was on the phone.  She had already suspected it since I was insistent about them coming to dinner, so I didn't feel as bad doing it this way.

7 weeks!

Well, 7 weeks yesterday.  The nausea has been kicking my ass lately.  I spent most of our usual dinner time yesterday gagging at the thought of food.  It seems to be the worst in the evening now, between 4 and 7, naturally when I need to be cooking dinner.  Even if I can't eat, C and R need something and freezer meals and left overs only work for so long.   My only other symptom right now is excessive peeing.  I don't remember getting up at night so much this early before.  I think part of my problem is that I can't stomach too much water before noon, and then I start guzzling it until my evening m/s kicks in, and then I'm thirsty again later at night.  I broke out the pregnancy pillow last week though.  It was quite the effort finding a pillow that worked with it, as I don't normally sleep with 2 pillows anymore, but just the pregnancy pillow wasn't enough and my regular pillow with it was too much (same with other pillows on hand).  I actually ended up going to Joann Fabric and buying down alternative type stuffing and jamming it in a little zippered pillowcase I had.  Cheap and a good solution!

Despite feeling like crap, I started my pre-natal workout DVDs yesterday.  I am soooo not a yoga person.  I just don't have the patience to listen to someone talk about their feelings while I try to do some low energy form of exercise.  And the woman is so damn perky.  I forget which yoga one I've got, but I'll be sure to post it later.   I tried Summer Sanders workout today and it was much better....similar to stuff I was doing before, but less to little cardio, which is exactly what I need now.

I think we are going to try to tell my parents this week and then R's parents and I guess siblings too next week.  I kind of wanted to hold off on his siblings (he has 3 plus spouses/BFs) but if everyone is together we may as well just go for it.

I'm planning on having C show my parents his new book and use the shirt at R's parents.

We have a heartbeat!!!

Somehow I managed to keep it together and not be a basketcase by the time I got into the office.  My blood pressure was amazingly only 116/73.  It might of helped that we decided to take C with us since it was an 11:45 appt and we knew the office would be empty (it was).  So I watched him play with his little tractor while we waited.

So the tech showed us our baby and the HB right away and said it looked nice and strong.  She measured it at just over 120!!  The baby itself is measuring 6w2days but she didn't really take a lot of time and even if she did, one day is NBD.  Watching that heart flicker away was every bit as amazing as it was when we saw C's for the first time.  I couldn't even bring myself to look away and check C's expression (which was probably complete boredom anyway!).   I do have pics, but I think they are probably the most unclear u/s pics I've ever seen so I'll upload them later.

6 weeks!

Hopefully there is a heartbeat in there now!  Waiting until Thursday is slow torture, but I know if all is well we have a better shot of seeing a strong HB in a few days.   I've been cramping like crazy, but nothing really concerning.   My smell aversions are ridiculous this time though.   When I went in for my last u/s,  I thought the office smelled like curry....it was one of the receptionist's breakfast...brown sugar, not curry.    A few days ago I suddenly could not stand the smell of the dog, and actually had to sleep in the spare bedroom because R was an ass and didn't leave the stupid thing downstairs.   And yesterday it was....R's clean shirt!  It smelled like nasty greasy something....just like when he comes back from hunting trips, which of course he hasn't done in two months.  Same went for his jacket and hat.  Even this morning I could still smell it so I moved his jacket to the laundry room.    Morning sickness was seeming to stay away until this morning.  Poor C came up to me eating a cheese stick and made some odd cough noise, then proceeded to throw up most of his breakfast.  I caught the first round in my hands to keep it from getting on the rug (Mom instincts I tell, didn't even think twice about it) and ran to the bathroom to dump it in the toilet and wash my hands.  That was no big deal.  After I stripped his clothes off I discovered the trail of vomit through the kitchen and that is what did me in.  Cleaning up barf has always been a weak spot for me, and naturally it sent me running for the toilet, which still had the first batch of barf!  Ugh.  I am praying he just had too much food in his mouth, because I really don't know how I'll manage a puking child right now.  At least he didn't seem too phased by it.

1st ultrasound!

Everything looked great.  The sac showed up immediately (with C the tech had to dig around for it) and she was even able to see a yolk sac.   My ovaries are looking pretty good too, but I'm still on restricted activity and pelvic rest until after we see the heartbeat.  That will be the appt. that I will be freaking the F out over.  But for now, it is as good as we can hope for.  No sign of a SCH, but it is still pretty early, those usually pop up after 7 weeks.

ETA: Finally! I had to freaking google blogger issues and there is current known glitch with IE users.  Guess I'll be using Chrome to add pics for awhile.  Here is our little blob at 5 week 3 days.

I'm still having a buttload of trouble with my PIO shots.  Quite literally.   The nurse said I could switch back to the sesame oil to see which is the lesser of the two evils, and then use a Benadryl cream on the injection sites.   I really hope that helps, because even showering this morning burned and itched.