We just keep swimming!

Monday, July 11, 2011

I am 8 weeks pregnant

Yup!

Today I'm tentatively 8 weeks, 1 day pregnant and feeling appropriately like crap. Nothing compared to last time with Kayla when I was throwing up at least 3 times every day, and couldn't even sit in a car let alone ride in one without hurling. So far, I've only thrown up twice and once was Kayla's fault for pooping and smearing it on her bedroom wall. That's another story entirely.

The nausea is pretty much constant but I'm relatively functional. I have been slacking on Kayla's letter of the week, which I really shouldn't and feel guilty. But right now I'm spending much more of my time and focus on not throwing up, so there's very little for other thoughts.

Aside from that I've been a little tired and feeling what I think is some round ligament pain. My pants already are getting tight and something about that just isn't fair.

We had a little scare earlier, so the fact I'm even this far in the pregnancy is a miracle. On June 21st I went to the ER for spotting and cramping and the found that I had a subchorionic hematoma, where there is blood between the placenta and the uterus. Not a huge issue and it usually resolves itself, but the thing that worried me the most is he said they thought I was only 4 weeks. I was dating it at 6 weeks, and that seems like a huge difference. He told me my beta level was at 5999.

4 days later at the regular doctor, they still couldn't even see an embryo, just a sac. And my hormones only went up to 6085. She rushed me to the hospital for an ultrasound to see if it was ectopic, but told me based on everything that it was a non-developing pregnancy.

It wasn't ectopic, so she prepared for the a miscarriage and made another appointment for a week later. Something about making a woman in this position wait an entire week for confirmation of a dead embryo is just cruel beyond measure. I was so depressed by the following week I just didn't care what they had to say. I was still feeling pregnant with sore boobs, nausea, headaches, everything. That, too, seemed unfair that I would lose the pregnancy but still have to suffer these symptoms.

Well, surprise surprise, she saw something on the ultrasound. SHe said because of the hematoma that they couldn't be sure with their equipment that it was an embryo and not a blood clot. She sent me again to be hospital for a better ultrasound the following day, where they found an embryo, heartbeat, and were able to date it at 6 weeks 5 days. That would be almost a week off from what I thought, and a week off from what the ER told me. Some somewhere comfortable in the middle of two wrong dates.

I went from having a 20% chance of a developing, viable pregnancy to having a little embryo with a heartbeat.

It's sort of annoying, however, that my family who knows all about this stuff immediately asks "Well, does this mean the baby will have problems?" Really? That's you first reaction to all this? Shouldn't you just be happy to hear the incredible news that the little bugger overcame an 80% of not even surviving? Sometimes people really know exactly what to say to people, I tell ya.

Well, now I'm waiting for the next appointment in a few days. Hopefully more good news ensues. For now I'm stuck battling my ultra-sensitive nose, which currently can't find the source of the cat food smell it's detecting around our computer desk. We have a cat, but when I smell her cat food, that's not the same smell. Something in this general vicinity smells like catfood, and it's getting nearly unbearable.

Gotta run!