Update

So now that the big reveal is over (and how fun it was!), the plan for this website is for it to become the Baby S. Blog. I can't promise any level of excitement or frequency in my posts, beyond that I'll be aiming to update once a week at a minimum. But there will be pictures, which is always fun :) I've also been keeping a private blog for the last couple of months, so over the next few days, I'll be editing those posts for public consumption and then they will begin to appear in the past here like magic.

Anyway, here's a mini-update regarding the baby: I had my first routine OB appointment today, and it was completely... routine. I'm used to them having some amount of drama (or at least an ultrasound), and this time, we just listened to the heartbeat, the doctor told me I was healthy and everything looked great, and I was on my way. Now I'm heading into the longest break so far between appointments (3 whole weeks) before I go back in on the 18th for another ultrasound.

Merry Christmas! :)

Baby S. at 12w3d, due 7/1/11

12w3d Ultrasound/NT Scan

I headed into this ultrasound with my usual trepidation, although not as bad as it has been. Since my symptoms kept up after I stopped the meds, and my dreams still involved live babies, I felt a little more confident this time - although I don't think either of those are good methods of determining if the baby is still ok, but I'm still going with whatever makes me feel better and stop stressing. So the first second of the ultrasound is the scariest to me, and luckily the baby has cooperated the last couple of times to give me some instant relief by moving around. The first time I was surprised, since I had never actually seen a baby moving on ultrasound before. This time, I was more shocked - the first visual we saw of the baby (and this was the first time Ryan had seen it since it started moving), it was arching its back and flailing... and I instantly felt bad for it, because it reminded me of me trying to sleep lately. Hopefully the baby is flailing more because it's floating around and less because it can't get comfortable.

So anyway, the ultrasound seemed to go well - we don't get the results of the NT scan back for about a week, once the bloodwork comes back too. But I think I saw a couple of measurements of the nuchal translucency fold at 2.5mm, which Dr. Google tells me is still within the normal range for how far along I am. We also saw the nasal bone (which I think I read that that isn't visible in 3 out of 4 babies with Down syndrome), so that should be a good sign - besides that we're in a fairly low risk group for Down syndrome and Trisomy 13/18 anyway, so hopefully the bloodwork comes back confirming that we're still low risk. Besides that, we got to watch the doctor categorize a bunch of body parts I'm pretty sure didn't exist a couple of weeks ago - bladder, stomach, heart (with all 4 chambers), etc. And we saw the fingers! They were a bit ET-ish though, since they were mainly discernible on the ultrasound image by the glowing fingertips. The heartbeat was still good at 160 bpm, and the baby still looked like it was measuring a couple of days ahead. I'm not out of the first trimester yet, but this is about the most (cautiously) optimistic I've been so far.



View from the top of the head, with little glowing fingers.

12 weeks

I missed last week's weekly update since we were in NYC, but it would've probably read much the same as this one. It looks like I'm past the "morning" sickness stage of things now. I was still feeling nauseated last week but not bad enough to need to wear my bands, and this week I've felt just fine except for a couple of waves of nausea. I even ate a salad - and enjoyed it - last week! I used to look forward to my daily salad, so that was something I found weird and a little sad when it started turning my stomach. I'm still eating it with ranch dressing (since *everything* tastes better with ranch), although maybe I'll even get back to my normal Italian dressing too. Two other big milestones: I am done with my meds! Sunday was actually supposed to be my last day on the Endometrin and estrace, but I ran out of the Endometrin on Wednesday and just decided to stop them both. Possibly related to the meds but most likely just coincidental: I stopped spotting! For the most part, at least. I was afraid stopping the meds was going to lessen my symptoms and make me start getting nervous again, but the spotting was one thing I was glad to see go. Besides that, I have plenty of other symptoms to choose from, so I'm cautiously feeling good about things now. I'm still nervous for my NT scan tomorrow, but I really won't be surprised if I'm nervous before every ultrasound right until the end.

Another symptom that I was glad to see go (but then ended up coming back) is bloody noses. Without getting into too much detail, suffice it to say that my trash can at work looked like a warzone for a while. The ready bleeding every time I blew my nose (which is frequent, since my nose has remained stuffed up since October) stopped last month, but then came back a couple of weeks ago, although it looks like it's lessening again. Good. I've also been more irritable lately, but I'm not sure how much of that can be blamed on the hormones and how much is just from lack of sleep. I used to be able to sleep so well - I miss the days when I would be asleep within seconds and not wake up until the alarm went off in the morning. I think it really dates back to when we first had troubles conceiving that my sleeping started to suffer too, since every month would be a roller coaster, with my nerves/lack of sleep amping up towards the end, and charting first thing each morning would lead to me waking up before my alarm, which was very frustrating when I just wanted to sleep and because it really messed with my ability to take my temperature at the same time each day. So I was hoping that my sleep would get better once I got pregnant since the stress of actually getting to this state would be over. Instead, I'm waking up every half hour or so still, from early morning on, with the sole purpose being - as far as I can tell - to frustrate me. I've heard that waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom can start this early, but it's not even that. I'm not waking up with any productive purpose, apparently just to turn over, glare at the clock, and then punch at my pillow to fluff it up/take out some frustration. And then after hours of doing that every so often, I then wake up before the alarm and then am completely unable to get back to sleep. This same routine happens on the weekend too, which used to be reserved for sleep catchup time, when I'd sleep until noon and feel wonderful and refreshed. No longer. So every day lately I've been exhausted and cranky I'm pretty sure it's purely from lack of sleep. And lest it sound like I'm complaining too much, I would still take having the uncontrollable urge to lay my head down on a dirty table at Wendy's just to rest for a few minutes over not being pregnant any day :)

I really can't tell if I'm actually any bigger this week than in the 10 week pic, or if it's just because I'm closer to the camera this week. I've read that I should start showing any time now, so hopefully it'll be sooner rather than later!

10w5d Ultrasound

I had my first appointment with the high risk doctor today, and just about everything went really well. The baby actually measured three days ahead this time, at 11w1d, and had a heartbeat of 161bpm. I got to see two little arms and legs, was able to see the heartbeat this time, and our baby moves now! I'm so used to looking at ultrasound pictures that I think I kind of forgot that the babies do actually move around in there too. How neat. And I heard the heartbeat and (sort of) saw the placenta and umbilical cord! So everything looked good with our remaining baby, and it turns out I was wrong with what would happen with the second sac - apparently the sac itself will not eventually be reabsorbed as well, but will just get squished by the other sac so it won't be as visible, and then might be visible as a "plaque" (I think that's the word he used) on the other sac at birth. So I was banking on the other sac being reabsorbed in hopes that would stop the spotting I've been having for nearly two months now, but after poking and prodding me and viewing things from several different angles, the doctor wasn't able to determine the source of the bleeding (no apparent subchorionic hemorrhage), so he also thinks it's because of the second sac. He agreed that it's "concerning" (that's twice in a week now that I've heard that, from two different doctors...ugh), but thought that it would be likely that the spotting would start decreasing soon and that I have a good chance at a healthy pregnancy.



I also remembered all the questions I forgot to ask my OB last week (when I felt like an idiot for not having a single question at my first appointment), so while I'm supposed to continue on the Prometrium and Estrace for about another week and a half (12/19), he said I could really just stop now since RE's will typically keep people on medications longer than is really needed once the body starts picking up the slack. So I actually will run out of meds a little before the 19th, so we agreed that I would continue taking them until I ran out, but there was no concern with needing to taper off them or order more to continue through to the 19th. He also recommended I stop riding :( I was only planning on riding for a couple more weeks anyway, but he was concerned with the spotting and thought I should be taking it more easy rather than riding a not-very-smooth horse. So maybe I'll go out in a couple of weeks to love on Rudy one more time (since that would have been the last time I would have gone out to the barn anyway), and then I'll tell his owner that I'll be taking a break and try to pave the way to hopefully be able to call him in a year to see if he has a horse for me to ride then.

I also apparently misunderstood the requirement to have a "delivering doctor" in order to be seen by the high risk doctor. I should have just given them the doctor's name who serves as backup to the midwives, but I interpreted it as they would not be willing to work with the midwives at all, which is apparently not true. So the high risk doctor told me I could start seeing the midwives now and he would work with them on the plan for my care going forward, and that they'd be able to do some of the scans, tests, etc., themselves anyway. I was all gung-ho to call them when I got home from my appointment to see if they'd be willing to see me now that I no longer have a twin pregnancy, but then realized that it would probably be better to stick with the original plan of waiting until I was out of first trimester before I switched to them, just in case. Especially since my NT scan is now scheduled with the high risk doctor for 12/20, and I don't want there to be any confusion with where the results should be sent. So I'll have them forward all the results to the OB (which should be done about a week after the scan), I'll go to my next appointment with the OB on 12/28, and then if all is going well by that point, I'll try to switch back over to the midwives.

10w2d

Now over 10 weeks along, and as far as I know, I'm still pregnant. Into the double digits! Symptoms are much the same as last week. I've been wearing my Sea-bands nearly non-stop, although I do seem to be less nauseated on the weekends (maybe because I'm more active and easily distracted than I am at work?) so I didn't wear my bands at all today and only had a couple minor waves of nausea. I of course would love for my nausea to stick around indefinitely if it would mean a healthy pregnancy, but from what the internets tell me, it usually seems to last only a few weeks before it dissipates, and I've had it for over four weeks now, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised if it starts going away soon. In the meantime, pretzel rods are my best friend, since I'm not a fan of saltines or other crackers, and since I usually like pretzel rods anyway, it's been convenient and welcome that I haven't developed some aversion to them since they seem to help with the nausea. I've also been more thirsty lately, and have been craving fruit juices... but since I still have a bottle of blueberry/pomegranate juice in my fridge at work from the first pregnancy (two years ago...) that I still hardly ever touch (although when I do it still tastes fine!), I can't justify buying more juice if it's just going to sit for years. So instead I've been gravitating towards the fruits where the juices I'm craving originate from (grapes, apples), and that seems to be working fine.

My weight seems to have stabilized, which I think is a good thing. I thought I was going to get a lecture from the doctor last week when she asked what my pre-pregnancy weight was and I actually told her the truth. I'm already not telling the truth about the date of my "last menstrual period" since it's two days off from my adjusted LMP based on the transfer date, and who knows if that will make a difference further down the road with being induced if I end up going over my due date. Anyway, so my weight the last few weeks has been about 5 pounds up from my pre-pregnancy weight. While I'm not sure what my weight gain is supposed to be at this point, I kind of doubt it's supposed to be 5 pounds if I'm only supposed to gain about 35 pounds over the course of the pregnancy and the baby is only weighing a matter of ounces right now.

I also attempted to go out riding this morning. It's just sad to know that my riding days are numbered, and although I had tried to give up horses before and survived it (but barely), I'm definitely not looking forward to having an open-ended hiatus from riding again. I've built up some good relationships at the barn where I've been riding the last few years, so I'm also worried about having to start over at a new barn if/when I start riding again after next summer if the same horses aren't still available for me to ride. So although my doctors weren't thrilled with me continuing to ride, I had come up with a few rules for myself as an attempt at a compromise: 1) don't do anything stupid, 2) don't ride for as long as I used to, and 3) stay in two-point as much as possible. I've pretty much failed at #3 (my legs are pretty pathetic so I can't stay up in two-point as I'd like), but I've been doing all right with numbers 1 and 2. Today I had to invoke rule #1, though, since I went out for the first time in a couple of weeks and it was freezing cold out and really windy. Rudy tends to get a bit spooky when it's windy, so given that he was probably going to be pretty fresh anyway, I ended up just brushing him and giving him his apple. I really only have maybe 2-3 more possible times that I may try to ride again before I tell Rudy's owner that I'm going on a indefinite riding break, and I'm not even sure how that will go since the cold is definitely making it more tempting to just stop riding now. I guess it's good that it's not warm out, since I really live for riding in the summers, and I have a feeling I would try harder to keep riding then... which may go against #1.

Here's the comparison pic for this week... I think I can almost see a difference from last week if I squint just a bit ;)