Happy Fetus Day!

According to one website, today is the day the baby is no longer an embryo, and is called a fetus. Woohooo! One more milestone passed!

friendly tapping and weight gain

You are not going to believe this. I'm not sure if I do. But I feel tapping from my central pelvis. There is somebody down there tapping/vibrating at times. :D

My weight gain, since 5 weeks when I inputted my first weight, is 1 pound. I'll be 10 weeks tomorrow. I'm right on target. :D

I moved up my due date one day

I was hoping I could do this. Originally, the ovulation stick went positive late on Sunday night. I had ovulation type pains starting Sunday afternoon, into Monday. My temp didn't rise precipitously until Wednesday. So that set ovulation as sometime between Sunday, Monday and Tuesday around March 6th. I went ahead and left it on Tuesday in case I was measuring behind for dates on my ultrasounds, I didn't want the doctor to think something was wrong. Now that I am measuring consistently ahead, I feel confident going with Monday as the day. I know, big deal. One day this way or that. But I'm happy.

I called the RE back this morning because my husband was worried that I told him there was blood behind the placenta. The RE corrected me and said that he said there was a fluid accumulation in the central uterine canal, and that there was no blood behind the placenta. I must have heard him wrong yesterday. Or maybe he misspoke. This is good news. I always have fluid in the central uterine canal. And that is no threat to the baby. Although DH is still not off the hook because I told him that he needs to come to Costco with me and pick up all the heavy cases of V8 and juice. {wink}

4th and final ultrasound with RE

Today was my last day seeing my reproductive endocrinologist. Now I graduate to seeing only the obstetrician. The ultrasound was so FUN! The little bub grew great. Six days ago baby measured 19mm and today measures 29mm. Really wonderful growth. The expected measurement for 10 weeks is 31mm, and that doesn't happen until Tuesday (4 days from now). So I think it is safe to say I am measuring at least 2 days ahead. I got to see all the fingers and toes. Little one was wiggling, and looked like maybe baby was sucking it's thumb. Let's just say the hand never left the mouth area. And baby hiccupped TWICE! That was so cute to see.

Doc said that there is some fluid behind the placenta, probably blood, and that I shouldn't get upset if I bleed a little this week. Honestly, he has been telling me the same thing for the past 3 weeks. I never seem to lose anything except maybe some clear fluid. Not even amber colored. I have not spotted in this pregnancy after my menstrual period was over. He told me to take it easy and avoid gym workouts and such, and I will do that.

A couple of stories

Yesterday was a bad day for food. I was SO hungry. Then everytime I went into the kitchen, there was a horrible smell. I couldn't eat, it was SO nauseating. I had made fish the night before, and so I took out the trash, but the smell lingered. I kept sniffing around and had it narrowed down to one corner of the kitchen, but I couldn't figure it out. It was like something had died. So later my husband came home, walked into the kitchen, and made a face. What smells bad? We looked around some more and couldn't figure it out. Then a few minutes later, I thought about the bag of potatoes that was sitting in the basket on the counter with the onions and bananas. Sure enough, there were a couple of BAD potatoes! EEEEEK!!!! Unfortunately, this was not until after dinnertime, so I really spent all day with this nausea problem. I weighed myself this morning and it turns out that I am 1/2 pound up from where I was at 4 weeks pg. I had been 1 pound up, so I lost back the other 1/2 pound. Whatever. The little bub is growing fine. And I should end the first trimester at what I wanted which was gaining between 1 and 4 pounds. That way I can gain lots of weight in the second and third trimesters. Wahoo!

I finally decided to tackle the problem of my filled sharps container. I have 2 very large sharps containers for my used syringes. I asked my husband about taking them to work, since that is where he got them for me, and he asked won't I be embarrassed??? I said NO! We are trying to have a baby and that is NOTHING to be embarrassed about. No, I'm not embarrassed in the least! The coworkers know we are trying anyway, so it will be no shock to them if I turn in a huge container full of used syringes. Then he asked if I was going to walk through the parking lot with it? No. I had planned on putting it into a large paper bag, which is what I did today. I then asked the office manager to meet me in my room and told her that I needed a new one. She totally understood. She is the sweetest person in the world. I felt a little bad, though, because she has infertility. No kids. Then she asked how things were going and I went ahead and told her that I was 9 weeks along, but that I wasn't going to get excited until after the amnio at my age. She said that she thought that I might be pg a couple of weeks ago, but she didn't want to ask, knowing it has been a hard year for us. I felt so bad for her telling her today, but she has gone through this with us before, and we have to face it sometime. Gosh, I hope she and her DH can have a baby someday. She is younger than me. I will never ask, though. I know that she broke up with her first husband after their failed IVF. It really destroyed their marriage. So I keep to myself and hope that there is happy news someday. The whole crew and I went out to lunch today for mexican food. It was fun. I got to drive everybody in my new minivan. That was myself and 4 coworkers.

Belly Shot 8.5 weeks

Feeling a little bloated this afternoon.

Perfect ultrasound #3

Today's stats are sac=31mm, emb=19mm, and yolk sac=4.3mm. Yay! Perfect! Since baby was 11.6mm last week, add 1mm per day and 7 days later you should get a baby measuring 18.6 or 19mm. YES!!!!! The 9 week measurements are sac=33mm and embryo=21mm. So subtract 2mm from both measurements means this baby is 9 weeks minus 2 days, or 8 weeks and 5 days. My ticker today reads 8 weeks 4 days, so I gained one day in measurements between this week and last week. Wahooo!!!!!!

The coolest part was that the baby was actually WIGGLING!!!!!

My nausea is at a low level, but there. Mostly bothers me all morning until after lunch. No complaints from me. :D

Coming full circle

The hilarious part is the punchline. My new appointment is already in my cell phone calendar. It was the first appointment set up by my OB doctor. Let me explain. I called the OB a week ago saying I wanted to set up a CVS appointment and that I would be released by the RE soon. So they said that the OB usually schedules ladies for a first tri screen (nuchal u/s and blood work) before deciding on any CVS or other testing. My RE told me that he would continue to follow me for a few more weeks, and that he was referring me to another doctor, Dr. Porto at UC Irvine. So I called up and canceled the other appt. I reached Dr. Porto yesterday and he is out of my insurance network. So DH and I decided to go ahead and go with the original people and do the first tri screen and bloodwork. I called today to get an appt, and they gave me my old appt back. 9:30 on May 16th. I'll be 12 weeks, and there will be time to get a CVS test is my first tri screening results are bad. If the screening results are good, then we will feel comfortable enough holding off to do the amnio, which has a lower risk overall than the CVS, and I will be able to continue Lovenox for another month longer before having to take a couple of days off for the procedure. And another funny thing. It turns out that if I need CVS through the original doctor, they will send me to Dr. Porto anyway. Ha! Whew! My head is spinning with all this.

More stress and confusion

Here's what I found out today. My RE wanted me to get the CVS, so I called his guy, Dr. Porto in Orange. He apparently does a lot of CVS tests, and even did the wife of my obstetrician. I wonder why my OB sent me to someone else, when Dr. Porto was good enough for his wife? So my big question when Dr. Porto called me this afternoon was will the Lovenox and baby aspirin cause a problem with the CVS procedure. He says that the Lovenox is a problem, and I would need to stop it 36 hours before the procedure, and not restart it until 24 hours after. The baby aspirin is not a problem. I discussed with him the fact that I have positive tests for IgM antibodies. He told me that maybe it would be best if we did a full consultation, so that he could look over all of my labwork and decide if it is OK to stop Lovenox at 11 weeks or if it would be better to go with a nuchal test and bloodwork, then decide if it might be better to wait for an amnio. The amnio is done later, so I could go longer on the Lovenox without stopping. Sigh. Then the lady in his office calls me back and says we are out of network, and the consult would cost $1100 cash (out of network deductible) and the procedures would be covered at 50%, such as the $1600 CVS would cost me $800 cash. I wonder what DH will say. Sigh.

Birthday bouncer party

Yesterday was fun. We had a big party for my 8-y-o boy. I got the biggest bouncer I possibly could fit into the yard. It might have been a little too big. One end covered the sidewalk. There were quite a few bumps and bruises, but overall everybody had a great time. Little Joseph got the worst of it. He landed on his face on the cement at one point, and got a bad bruise and scab on his face, poor little one. He's running around like crazy today, though, none the worse for wear. I think you might be able to see his little bruise on this picture.

Another perfect ultrasound

I had the presence of mind to jot down notes during the ultrasound today, so here are the statistics. Heartbeat was "over 120" and strong, but his machine doesn't measure it like a doppler. The gestational sac was 22mm (I think it was 15 last time). The yolk sac was 4mm (good that it is small, apparently). The embryo was 11.6mm, up from 3mm last time, perfect growth! And he measured the corpus luteum as 14mm. He didn't measure the free fluid but said that it had gone down and there was much less of it. Overall another perfect ultrasound. I need to look up the exact measurements on the internet to find out the exact day of my measurements, although perhaps I should just relax and enjoy this healthy pregnancy.

EDIT: I went to a website and the 7 week measurement is 8mm for the embryo. Add 1mm for each day. If I take 11.6 to equal 12mm, then I measure 7weeks plus 4 days (the difference between 12 and 8mm. My ticker reads 7weeks and 4 days today EXACTLY!

Another thing. I asked when he would be kicking me out. He said he would follow me another few weeks until around 10 weeks. In that case, I said, what about CVS, Nuchal Translucency tests and all that. He said that for my age it was appropriate to go straight to CVS and skip the nuchal, because the NT test is more for younger women. It only screens for downs. That makes a lot of sense to me. I can't understand why my OB wants to put off the CVS testing and have me do the general screening tests first, when I am really so old and high risk. And I had 2 amnios with the other boys. So why would we do *less* testing with this baby when I am so much older now? My RE's advice sounds perfect. I will cancel the first tri screening with the other guys and go to his doctor at UC Irvine for the CVS test. That will give me a lot of peace of mind for the rest of the pregnancy. I have very little confidence now.

My new bella band arrived

I am so excited to wear my jeans again. The size 6 jeans are now 3 inches from closing at the top. The bella band is going great holding them up. My shirt then drapes over it and it looks like I'm wearing an undershirt. Yay!

Today's belly pic

I definitely didn't want to take any belly pics before seeing a heartbeat. But I think it is OK now. I have to enjoy every day, right? Even if it is only for a short time? I pray that this pg lasts until Thanksgiving.

I'm losing weight

I'm not trying to lose weight, of course, but I think what has happened is that my tastebuds find that a lot of foods taste bad. And the fact that it is Passover makes my food choices so very limited, if those foods taste bad to me, then I'm really stuck. I have lost 2.5 pounds, 2 pounds in the last week alone. I am SO looking forward to sundown on Tuesday night. I can start eating my normal foods again.

Perfect ultrasound

The ultrasound turned out great. Baby measured 3mm, just right for dates. The sac was the perfect size. The yolk sac was great. The heart was beating 120bpm, and looked very strong. I am in awe of the miracle.

Incidental finding of fluid in the uterus, seen on the right side of photo. About as much as 2 more baby sacs, lol. No wonder I am "showing" so soon. It's like I have triplets worth of fluid in there.

Perfect blood test results

My beta hcg came back today at 16,694! The progesterone was 20.26. I know I said that I would call on Monday, but then I decided it was better to get it over with than be nervous all weekend. I checked the beta base website and their singleton pregnancy chart goes up to 30dpo(days past ovulation). Today I am 31dpo. The median hcg for 30dpo on their chart is 16,670! Wow! Can't be more spot-on than that! I sure hope this means that I have a baby in there with a beating heart. I will find out tomorrow am. They are getting me in Saturday am for an ultrasound. I have tried to be pessimistic about this whole thing to protect my battered heart. I can't help but feel very very hopeful at this point. All I need is a heartbeat tomorrow and a good CVS (chorionic villus sampling) result in mid May, and I'm good to go.

Hopefully my last hpt pic

Here is one last pic. I wanted to take another test to assure myself that the hcg is not fading away. 5 more days and I call the doctor's office.