40 Weeks

A mother's seventh (and final) journey through the wonders of pregnancy.

Monday, March 24, 2008

9 Weeks, 5 Days

K has had to break the news to two women this week that there was no heartbeat at their routine 9-week ultrasounds. Not only is that hard for him, but since I'm at that same stage with the combined worries of advanced maternal age and a subchorionic hematoma, I've been a little anxious this week. He took me to his office for a sonogram last night, and I am happy and relieved to report that the hematoma has apparently resolved itself (as he predicted it would) and we saw so much movement that it really made the baby seem much more real to me. Hands were fluttering around the mouth already, we could see little feet kicking, and we could make out fingers and toes. K was even able to point out the yolk sac where he said our future grandchildren had been, although they had probably already moved out of the sac and into the baby by now. Is that amazing and miraculous or what??

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Round 7! 2 Months

Since we had been actively trying to conceive since April of last year, we knew as soon as it was possible to know in mid-February that we were expecting. Our original plan was not to tell anyone until we knew the sex of the baby about halfway through the pregnancy, but then Mom was trying to plan her vacation time and I had to tell her. Of course, if I had told my family, K had to tell his. So now everyone knows! As usual, there were mixed reactions, with a few family members and several friends being genuinely happy for us, and more family members who think we're crazy and contributing to overpopulation.


So far I've had no physical symptoms and wouldn't have even guessed that I was pregnant if I hadn't been trying so hard to get that way. Even after two ultrasounds (K has started dragging me in weekly just to be sure everything is progressing normally,) I sometimes feel like I'm just pretending to be pregnant because I want it so badly. Seeing the wiggly jellybean with a heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor makes it seem more real for a few minutes, at least, though I quickly go back to feeling like I'm pretending afterward. I do, however, already have my usual interesting pregnancy dreams, which include the scary "someone is trying to kill me" dreams. I only have those when I'm pregnant, for some reason. Thus far this pregnancy, I've nearly died in a terrorist's fiery blast on a hospital roof and had some other fire-related misadventure that I've conveniently forgotten. My other pregnancy dreams are usually more entertaining and outnumber the scary dreams, thankfully.


Here are a couple of pictures from our two sonograms for your squinting "what exactly am I supposed to be looking at" pleasure:



The two bright white spots in the upper right part of the dark circle represent the top and tail of the embryo at 6 weeks and 2 days of pregnancy.


At 8 weeks and 3 days, the baby has grown quite a bit in the past two weeks! Looking a bit like the Geico lizard, the baby's head is at the top of the dark circle, and the faint white line leading from the baby to the right side of the circle is the umbilical cord. To the left of the dark circle is another dark mass, which is a somewhat worrisome subchorionic hematoma. Although this is fairly common in the first trimester and usually resolves itself with no problems, I'd have been better off not knowing about it, since enough digging on Google can turn up negative outcomes for just about anything. K is keeping a close eye on this.