7 1/2 week update

How do you spot the pregnant chick in the Farm Boy parking lot?

She’s the one rooting through the bags recently deposited into the back of the station wagon, eating the meat directly out of the package.

***

I’ve just been for my first ultrasound, and everything looks great. One wee baby snuggled in just the right spot, measuring one day ahead of schedule at 7w4d and with a steady, strong heartbeat of 158 bpm.

One tiny piece of the iceberg of anxiety has melted away. I can’t quite give myself over to giddy joy, but I find myself stoically satisfied. My next appointment, the ultrasound and blood work of the first step of the integrated prenatal screening test, seems a lifetime away at five weeks from today.

***

My regular OB was accompanied by a resident with a soft voice and careful manner. He welcomed me and asked me if I had any questions about the pregnancy. I told him that this is my fifth pregnancy and that I’m an obsessive researcher, and I could probably answer a few questions for him instead. He laughed in an uncertainly polite way, and excused himself as quickly as he could. I should have been less blunt, but I was feeling disconcerted instead of comforted by being back in the OB’s all-too-familiar exam rooms again.

***

I did have a few questions for my OB, things I just wasn’t comfortable asking the kindly resident with the liquid brown eyes. I wanted to know about testing for abnormalities, and I wanted to know if there was a pathology report from the D&C last November. I was standing next to her when she pulled out my file, thick with the reports and results from two full-term pregnancies, two miscarriages and the lost twin. I found myself reading over her shoulder, knowing it was a dangerous game and yet unable to stop.

As she told me that the pathology report did not include information about Trisomy 18 or other genetic abnormalities, I held my breath and felt separated from my roaming eyes, wondering almost idly what I would do if I stumbled across information about the lost baby’s gender and wondering if that’s what I was really seeking. Perhaps for the best, she closed the file before I could make sense of any of the clinical report and assured me that there was nothing in the file to cause any concern about my current pregnancy.

***

Seven and a half weeks and all is well. It’s all I need to know.

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Author: DaniGirl

Canadian. storyteller, photographer, mom to 3. Professional dilettante.

22 thoughts on “7 1/2 week update”

  3. All will be well and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well~Dame Julian of Norwich
    Glad for the good news today.

  4. All will be well and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well~Dame Julian of Norwich
    Glad for the good news today.

  7. Yay, it is the best feeling, seeing the little baby at the u/s. Today is my 10 week appointment with my doctor, and I am looking forward to that! (But not looking forward to stepping on the scale) Anyway… yay for you. 🙂
    P.S. You said you were eating meat in the parking lot of Farm Boy and I do not want to preach but aren’t cold cuts COMPLETELY off the menu during your pregnancy? I read the list of ‘what not to eat’ – no cold cuts, no sushi, no tuna (or very limited) no feta (and that is so sad, as I am Greek and it is summer and eating my Greek salad without feta is sad)… so yeah, just wondering, were you eating cold cuts and isn’t it a no-no? (I try to even stay away from Coffee Crisp chocolate bars as I think that might be too much caffeine!)

  8. Yay, it is the best feeling, seeing the little baby at the u/s. Today is my 10 week appointment with my doctor, and I am looking forward to that! (But not looking forward to stepping on the scale) Anyway… yay for you. 🙂
    P.S. You said you were eating meat in the parking lot of Farm Boy and I do not want to preach but aren’t cold cuts COMPLETELY off the menu during your pregnancy? I read the list of ‘what not to eat’ – no cold cuts, no sushi, no tuna (or very limited) no feta (and that is so sad, as I am Greek and it is summer and eating my Greek salad without feta is sad)… so yeah, just wondering, were you eating cold cuts and isn’t it a no-no? (I try to even stay away from Coffee Crisp chocolate bars as I think that might be too much caffeine!)

  11. Great news Dani.
    I know it is hard to not know what happened in the past, but sometimes you have to let go and just roll with it.
    I too have another u/s this week and my nerves are just shot with all the questions in my head (placenta in the right place? baby too big? too much fluid?…) so for now, I am just trying to roll with it, no need to stress out with something that is beyond my control.

  12. Great news Dani.
    I know it is hard to not know what happened in the past, but sometimes you have to let go and just roll with it.
    I too have another u/s this week and my nerves are just shot with all the questions in my head (placenta in the right place? baby too big? too much fluid?…) so for now, I am just trying to roll with it, no need to stress out with something that is beyond my control.

  15. Totally with you on the testing being so far away. We survived terrible IPS results (somebody has to be that one in a kajillion) and all the follow-up tests known to medical professionals. Every single one of them was like waiting for an eternity. Now, baby girl 2 (or as my mother calls her Daughter As Yet Not Named – DAYNN)appears to have exactly the same chances as any other, and I’m quite content waiting these last few weeks to hold her in my arms. I know I’m getting marginally more sleep with her on the inside. Except, oh, man, the heat.
    Thanks for sharing.

  16. Totally with you on the testing being so far away. We survived terrible IPS results (somebody has to be that one in a kajillion) and all the follow-up tests known to medical professionals. Every single one of them was like waiting for an eternity. Now, baby girl 2 (or as my mother calls her Daughter As Yet Not Named – DAYNN)appears to have exactly the same chances as any other, and I’m quite content waiting these last few weeks to hold her in my arms. I know I’m getting marginally more sleep with her on the inside. Except, oh, man, the heat.
    Thanks for sharing.

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