16 Week Ultrasound & Appointment

I had my level 2 ultrasound and follow-up with my OB today.  My appointments started down in u/s.  Baby was nicely tucked away and relaxing – not as much movement as the previous u/s.  I’m sure it’s because I hadn’t had breakfast and my bladder was nowhere near full.  With ankles crossed and one arm resting on it’s forehead the tech took all sorts of measurements.  Several were put aside until my 20 week u/s simply because the baby is still so small (a mere 6 ounces) at this point.  After we discussed why I was there, she took a lot of time looking over my cervix (nice and long still) and placenta.  Because of the positioning at this time, she did a trans-vaginal u/s to look at the bottom of my placenta.  This is where I noticed her doing a lot of measuring and what appeared to be an abnormal spacing (to me) and I knew something had to be up.  Unfortunately, u/s tech’s don’t tell you much so I knew I would have to wait until I saw my OB to start asking too many questions. 

We didn’t get a lot of great pictures, but we did get this nice 3D shot of the baby.  With no body fat yet, sure does look pretty skeletal and “alien-like.”

16 Weeks

We also attempted to peak at the gender, but baby had it’s legs pretty tight and the guess we got today is simply a guess.  I’m pretty sure I saw the same thing the tech was, so I’m going to say I’m 90% sure we’ll be welcoming a little girl into our house in August.  :)  It would only make sense that a girl is the one keeping mommy on her toes and making things a little bit complicated!

After getting done in u/s, I went up to see my OB.  He did the usual weight, blood pressure, tummy, and heartbeat checks.  Then we went over my u/s results.  The cause of my bleeding was due to a placental hemorrhage.  It is healing according to what the u/s tech saw, but I still need to take it easy and let things continue to heal.  With that, I’m stuck on “limited activity” still and counting down until my next appointment.

I go back in 4 weeks on March 22nd,  to have my 20 week (WOW, I’ll be half way done with this pregnancy!) u/s and see my OB again.  I’m sure the gender will be confirmed at this u/s and we’ll have LOTS of fun pictures of the baby.

As usual...

I'm behind on updating on here from my last appointment (by almost a week - gasp!).

I did finally get in on Thursday morning last week to see my OB.  Although, he was not aware at all that I was there due to bleeding.  He seemed pretty miffed when I asked him if he knew I was there for follow-up and not just a regular prenatal appointment because he didn’t know.

We went over everything that I experienced prior to the ER visit and while I what happened in the ER.  In his (30 year) experience, he said bleeding at this stage is related to one of four reasons.  His best judgment is that the bleeding was caused by the placenta growing and continuing to need to burrow into the uterine wall.  As it's doing this in my case, it's most likely disrupting vessels and causing the bleeding.  He also said that in his experience, he's probably only seen 2-5% lose the pregnancy after bleeding of this nature.

For the time being, I'm going to be watched closely and he wants me on limited "bed rest."  Never had a "high risk" pregnancy before, but hopefully I won't stay one.  In his words, if this is related to the burrowing of the placenta, I should "grow out of it."  The limited bed rest currently only entails a few things - thankfully!!  So, no lifting (even the tiny tornados), no exercising, basically just keep it mellow!  Even though my OB didn't say anything regarding intercourse, my husband and I have decided to stay away from it for awhile (as much as that is driving my pregnant libido insane, I'm willing to agree if it keeps the babe safe).

I definitely felt a lot better after seeing my OB – I completely trust his experience and it helped calm a lot of my fears just to talk things out with him.  I know I have no control over what is going to happen at this point, but it’s nice to know someone with a LOT of experience is keeping his eyes on me.

I go back in two weeks – Friday the 25^th and will have a level 2 (hour long) ultrasound and then will see my OB afterwards.  Hopefully this will either tell us what is causing the bleeding or it’ll show everything is good.  I’ll be 16 weeks by then and am hopeful that we might get a shot at knowing the gender too! :)

Tomorrow is a new day...

Thank goodness each day starts anew!

I was suppose to have my follow-up appointment with my OB today for the bleeding I experienced last Saturday.  I shouldn't have felt so confident with myself and the traffic on the way down to my OB office (from my work to the other side of town) because just as I'm about to turn on the last 6 blocks to get there, I'm stopped by a train.  I had to sit in the turning lane and wait and wait and wait (trains are really long around here), so as I saw the end of the train and my light was still green, I pulled out so I could at least turn left on the street I wanted.  As I was waiting for the traffic to clear before I could turn, the light turns red and I watch this car (without it's signal on) make a right turn right in front of me - she was just following the traffic in front of her, oblivious that the light had turned (on her cell as well).  I had to wait for her before I could finish making my left hand turn and as I'm doing it this car that wants to come across the intersection (because her light is obviously green) starts blaring her horn at me.  So my choice, would have been to be just as oblivious as the lady making the right on red and hit her or let the other lady t-bone me...thankfully I was paying to attention and screamed back at her (because you know she heard me)!

The parking is always terrible at the clinic, but thankfully there was a spot for me to sneak into.  I'm practically running towards the clinic - cussing the whole time over being late and it taking me 30 minutes to get to my appointment.  I get up to the desk and the girl looks at me and goes - "we don't have anything set up for you today."  I immediately felt myself falling apart emotionally, but kept it together to tell her specifically who I talked to and when.  She looks over to the girl at the next desk as the one I spoke to and her face drops.  To top everything off, my OB was not in at all today and they thought it was best for me to see him and not just the nurse practitioner who was there.  Guess who has the first appointment of the day tomorrow?!  You guessed it, ME!  They better give me an ultrasound and some answers tomorrow!

I do feel horrible for my husband though, I called him as I was leaving the clinic.  I don't think he really heard anything audible, as I was sobbing.  I'm sure he thought the worst at the moment, but thankfully I was finally able to get out what happened to him.  These clinics really should know not to screw anything up with a hormonal and emotional pregnant women - ESPECIALLY one who has been experiencing bleeding!

Just as I published the last post, I got the phone call I had been impatiently patiently waiting for.

The OB who reviewed my case did not feel I needed to be seen today by her because the bleeding had subsided, but they did want me to see my OB this week and not wait until my scheduled appointment on the 17th.  I go in on Wednesday for follow-up.  Praying they have some reason for this and that it's something that will correct itself before baby gets bigger and the size of everything could cause further complications.

I've been meaning to write about our first prenatal appointment since I had it almost a month ago.  For time sake, I'm going to try to get out the shortest version.

My OB did an internal ultrasound where we got to watch baby moving around like crazy and even see the cord pulsating.  It's amazing how clear everything was with an internal versus abdominal ultrasound.  We discussed the bleeding a few days earlier and he figured it was from the baby implanting and the placenta attaching/burrowing into the uterine wall.  It's apparently fairly common, even if I hadn't experienced it with my previous pregnancies.  He is leaving my due date based on my FF chart and we will discuss induction at term due to my previous labor being so quick.

Here's a picture of our beautiful babe.

10 weeks 5 days