Ultrasound Update

We went for our third ultrasound yesterday. It was also my last appointment with my RE! That was bittersweet because I really do like him and his staff, and I really feel well taken care of. But he also said, "you're just a regular ol' pregnant woman now," which was music to my ears. Still, it was a little nerve wracking to leave his care. I have complete confidence in my OB so that's not the issue, but something about being in the care of a specialist, more specifically, the specialist who put this baby in me, was extra comforting to me. On the other hand, I'm thrilled. In 3 weeks, we'll be done with all of the medications. My body and baby will have taken over the process the way it's supposed to be. I get to drive 20 minutes instead of 2 hours for an appointment. And my OB is great, so seeing him is swell too.

Call me cheesy, but I took a picture with our doctor and the coordinator for our baby book :)


The appointment went well. Baby is measuring 13.84mm. That's almost twice what it was 5 days ago! It's amazing how fast they grow at this stage of development. The heartbeat was nice and strong, coming in at 147bpm. The yolk sac is appropriately shrinking (which means the placenta is doing its job and taking over the job of feeding the baby), and the gestational sac (the long water-balloon shaped dark space), is nicely sized, too.


Baby is between the two + signs. The little white dot toward the left side is the heart. The round shape on the right side of the right + is the yolk sac, not the head (which is what I thought when I saw it was round). The doctor and the coordinator said they could see the spinal cord and limb buds, too, but all we see is a cute little blob.

They put my due date as February 3rd, rather than January 31/February 1 (where my OB put it), which makes sense since the baby was measuring 3 days smaller than the Jan 31/Feb 1 date we were working off. They said that size-wise, baby was measuring 7w4days (and by the Feb 1 due date I would have been 7w6d), but they also said that developmentally, baby was right on track for 8 weeks. He also said that he wasn't confirmed about the difference in size either and said it's very likely baby will make up the difference. So, who knows. Baby apparently has a mind of his/her own and will come whenever he/she wants to. But I did change my ticker to reflect the Feb 3 due date.

The coolest part of the whole appointment was when he flipped a switch and we could HEAR the heartbeat as we watched it. We had seen it twice before, but we'd never heard it before. Lots of things I'd read and even my OBs office said it's difficult to hear at this point, so we weren't expecting to be able to hear it until our appointment in a few weeks. But, because this doctor deals exclusively in early life, his machines are more sophisticated. It was such a nice surprise! He let it run for a while so we could really soak it in. And we had invited my mom to come along, so it was neat for her to be there, too.

The *only* bummer is that now, we don't get to see baby again until 18-20 weeks! I've gotten rather attached to seeing our little one on a weekly basis! But now, since I'm a "regular ol' pregnant woman," I only get to see what other "regular" pregnant women get to see! There's a slight chance we'll get one more peek at 10 weeks--my doctor will do a doppler check for a heartbeat and if he can't find it (which is possible since I have, err, um, lots of insulation), then he'll do an ultrasound. I'm sort of secretly hoping that the doppler isn't sufficient so we get another look ;)

I have a huge praise. My NVP was getting really bad and I was vomiting all day, every day, for almost a week. Saturday and Sunday, I literally threw up after every time I ate. Yesterday, I got a nice break and while I was queasy all day, I didn't vomit once, and so far, today has been a good day too, so I am SO thankful for the reprieve and am enjoying it as long as it lasts! God has been very generous with this "break."

Well, I need to go pick up Mike and Krista's son from VBS so I've gotta scoot so I'm not late. Thanks for checking in!