I had a panic attack at my OB appointment on Monday (13 wks exactly), while the nurse was taking my blood pressure. I don't know what exactly freaked me out, just everything. Luckily my blood pressure was still not ridiculously bad even considering the panic attack. The doctor was very pleased with my blood pressures so far, (I still don't get why, they were NEVER high with Olivia, even when I was at my sickest in the hospital- but she still calls it pre-eclampsia too and technically by definition it wasn't, it was just HELLP.)
She gave me the lab slip to get the AFP bloodwork (also known as the "quad screen") at 16 weeks, and when I talked about what kind of monitoring they'll be doing once I'm 20+ weeks, she said that it would be a lot more and reminded me that I can come in every day that I want, even every day if I need it. She found the baby's heartbeat right away and we heard him/her moving around. She's having me meet her new partner at my next appointment. My doctor has stopped doing on call with other practices, so I'll either see her or her partner in the hospital for sure. I'm not sure if I should take that as a sign that my doctor doesn't expect me to make it very far again or she's just getting it out of the way now. The first time she wasn't concerned about me meeting her partner until 30ish weeks and I ended up meeting her in the hospital and delivering at 23. This time I'll be meeting the partner at 18 weeks. She also told me that she wants me to go through all of my first pregnancy with the partner, even though it's in my charts and records, that it will be good for her to hear it. So, that should take awhile and will be a very fun time (this will be about the 5th time I've rehashed it to doctors who have all of my records in the past 4 months or so.)
On Friday, when I was 13 wks and 4 days, we had an ultrasound with the high risk perinatal center.It was a different tech from the first time, so I guess they actually have two ultrasound techs. The baby was measuring AHEAD, by up to 4 days! His/her heart rate was 150. Even the ultrasound tech commented that the baby was being ridiculously cute, upside down, right side up, little elbows and hands and legs flying everywhere. (They probably say that to everyone, but she didn't say it like "oh your fetusbaby is so cute"...it was when baby was being all crazy she said, "OH! That's so cute!") The doctor thought everything looked great (not mine but one of the high risk people who keep a live watch on all of the ultrasounds that are happening- different doctors are on "ultrasound duty" on different days.) She printed us like 10 good pictures, and here they are:
(In this one rainbow has their arm in front of their face, the tech thought trying to suck his/her thumb.)
This one you may recognize from the blog header, it's the same picture of rainbow, with a pretty decent outline of rainbow's profile and you can see his/her arm on the side of their body (the part that's more white), and clearly the walls of my uterus make a lovely footrest. Can't wait to start feeling all of those kicks!
Another profile shot, rainbow has his/her arm up and hand flexed towards himself/herself.
According to "nub theory", baby is looking girlish, but ultrasound tech wouldn't even take a guess, so we won't start buying pink just yet.
Baby has clearly had enough of the paparazzi-like ultrasound techs. Hand is up in front of his/her face, as if shooing away the camera, with his/her little elbow sticking up.
(Don't worry, baby's head is still there, just not apparent in this shot.)
Ultrasounds are a lot more fun when baby has obvious body parts rather than just a blob or shrimp. Hopefully our next few ultrasounds are this good! (Olivia started falling behind in growth about 17-19 weeks and then a lot more significantly by 22 weeks, so if this baby just stays on track through 23 or 24 weeks, that will be a very good sign, even if I do ultimately get sick again, if we can push back when things start going bad back by a few more weeks, this baby will have a decent chance.)
