Good news!

I think we're actually going to have a baby! We went to the doctor again this morning and we still have a heartbeat! We were able to hear it through the doppler today, not just see it on the ultrasound. My NP said that this means our miscarriage risk has gone way down. So I think we're actually having a baby!!!!!

This is the wonderful card my mom send us, and which arrived yesterday. (You all know my thing about penguins, right?) Thanks, Mom!
(Sorry I can't figure out how to rotate pictures from my phone.)


P.S. According to the ridiculously incorrect old wive's tale about fetal heart rate and gender, our baby's heartrate of 160 means that we're having a girl! Or course, this old wive's tale is only correct about 50% of the time, but it's still fun. :)
http://www.in-gender.com/Gender-Prediction/Fetal-Heart-Rate.aspx

Week 10: prune

Baby's now the size of a prune! 

Now, she's about 1.2 inches long and weighs about .14 ounces. Her body length will almost double in the next three weeks.

• Baby has working arm joints, and her cartilage and bones are forming.
• Her vital organs are fully developed and they're starting to function.
• Her fingernails and hair are starting to appear, too.
• Plus, she's swallowing and kicking in there. (Can you believe it?!)

My own worst enemy

Sometimes I think my mind, with its penchant for catastrophizing, is my own worst enemy. I felt so much better in the first few days after my last appointment, but I just realized that I never cried any tears of relief, and now I'm back to feeling like a nervous wreck again. I realized that I'm still holding myself very much on edge. I really thought I would fully embrace this pregnancy after we successfully crossed the 8-week mark, but I still haven't. And now I've managed to completely convince myself that all my symptoms are all in my head.

My nausea? Maybe it's the result of eating such a crappy diet (not that I'm eating a crappy diet because I can't choke down anything other than simple carbs).
My fatigue? Maybe I've just always been this tired and never realized it.
My occasional vomiting? Must have been food poisoning.
My new-found ability to cry at the drop of a hat? Maybe I'm just getting in touch with my emotions.

Logically, I know that everything looked good on our last ultrasound, that my doctors are all optimistic, and that I have no real reason to be worried. But yet with two missed miscarriages behind me, I can't help but worry that it's happened again -- even though I know logically that, for it to happen at this point, would be a true statistical anomaly.

I have my next appointment a week from today (Oct 4). Maybe then I can let myself relax a bit? I really hope I can enjoy this pregnancy at some point, despite my inherent propensity for worry.

Pervin

The Vikings have now started the season with an 0-3 record. Part of the reason they lost today, in my humble opinion, is because Percy Harvin (aka "Pervin," as Mike and I like to call him) sat out most of the 4th quarter. Why, you ask? Apparently he had "slight nausea," according to the announcers.

Seriously?!?

Suck it up, Pervin. I make waaaaaaaaay less money than you do and I still manage to make it to work every day, despite my morning all-day sickness.

Seriously.

Milestones

(TMI alert!!)

We've hit a lot of milestones so far:
-our bean is now officially a fetus
-"morning" sickness started in week 6
-I'm now sleeping through the night again (now that I've learned to manage my fluid intake better so I don't have to pee at 5am every day)
-we got past the first OB visit (for the first time!)
-etc.

But last night I hit a new low: first ever vomiting. Ugh. I absolutely despise throwing up - to the point that when I have clients talk about it, I even feel ill even when I'm not pregnant. Luckily I have a stomach of steel, so even though I've had lots of queasiness and dry heaves (especially when I brush my teeth, for some reason), I was optimistic that I would escape the vomiting part of "morning" sickness - which, by the way, does not just happen in the morning. In fact, for me I feel best in the morning, then I rapidly deteriorate by about 10am, only starting to feel better around 8 or 9pm.

Anyway, last night we tried to be all cosmopolitan by going out on the town. We ate dinner at Cossetta's, since Italian food is one of the few things that has appealed to me. Against my better judgment, I ate some salad with my pizza, even though the thought of vegetables has been making my stomach churn. (So not like me!) After dinner we walked over to the Science Museum for their "Fermentational Informational," a 21+ night at the museum with games, free snacks, and free beer/wine samples. (This works great for Mike  because I still get free alcohol samples because I don't look pregnant, but he gets to drink all of my samples!) Then we went to the Omnitheatre for a special showing of Amazon, even though my intuition was whispering that this might not be the best idea.

And it wasn't.

I had forgotten that I get a little nauseated at the Omni even on a good day. And by the time I got home and did my dreaded teeth brushing, it was all over. Yuck.

Let's hope that I can keep this from becoming a trend by listening to my intuition and my body a little better. No more salads for now, and no more Omni. Blech.

Week 9: Green Olive

Baby's now the size of a green olive!

She's gaining steam! She measures around .9 inches and weighs about .07 ounces.

• This is a milestone. She's no longer an embryo -- now she's a fetus!
• She's developing more distinct facial features.
• And she might now have a strong enough heartbeat to be picked up by a fetal doppler
 

http://pregnant.thebump.com/pregnancy-week-by-week/9-weeks-pregnant.aspx

First OB visit

Yesterday was our first official OB visit. (Apparently the other 5 times didn't count!) This one was with my nurse practitioner (who works with my ob/gyn). She was very nice, but a little too mellow for my tastes. Or maybe I was just annoyed because she was already running 45 minutes behind for our 8:40am appointment. Since I had clients starting at 10, this cut our visit a little (actually, a lot) short. Ugh!

But, we got to see our little bean again, and s/he continues to measure right on track for "age." This time s/he was wiggling and squirming about - I think s/he was excited to see us! :) For some reason I had always imagined fetuses just floating around all zen-like, but that was not what our bean was doing!

So now that we've made it this far, we actually have to make some decisions! We have 1 week to decide whether we want to do the First Trimester Screen, which has to be done between weeks 11 and 13 (and is apparently a little difficult to schedule). As best I can understand it, this is a blood test plus a fancy ultrasound that will tell you your personalized risk of having a baby with Trisomy 21 (aka Down syndrome), and Trisomy 13 or 18 (both of which are ultimately incompatible with life - if they even make it to full term, they usually die within hours to days).

We have a little longer to decide if we want the Maternal Quad Screen, which is done between weeks 16 and 18. This is just a blood test, and it screens for all of the above plus neural tube defects (such as spina bifida). It's a little less accurate than the First Trimester Screen for detecting the chromosomal abnormalities.

No matter what, we definitely get the 18-20 week ultrasound, which would be able to detect (with pretty good accuracy, except for Trisomy 21) any of the above as well.

The advantage of doing either of the screenings is that it could (a) give us peace of mind or (b) give us an early indication that something might be seriously wrong, so we'd have more time to make decisions. The disadvantage is that these are all fairly rare problems and if there seem to be any issues we would be referred for more invasive tests (such as CVS or amnio) which both have a risk of miscarriage (1/100 for CVS, 1/300 for amnio).

Here's more info from the Mayo Clinic website:  http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-testing/MY01403

We're going to think about it a bit longer, but at this point we're leaning toward just waiting for the 20-week ultrasound. If we have a baby with Down syndrome, we wouldn't do anything different. If we have a baby with Trisomy 18 or 13, or with neural tube defects, the 20-week u/s would tell us and we'd be able to make decisions then.

Besides, I'm really trying to be all zen and just trusting that everything will work out this time.

Anyone see any flaws to our logic? Any pros or cons that I'm not considering?