Fetal Echo

We had a fetal echo done on the baby's heart today. It was recommended after our last scan and the OB said it'd be a good idea since we had to do the rescue ICSI. Since I'm almost at 24 weeks now, if something didn't look right they could start trying to figure out how to fix it. Luckily everything looked ok. I was more stressed about it than I wanted to be. Mostly because if something showed up on this particular scan, it was making me feel as though it was our fault. We knew going in that ICSI had a higher incidence of birth defects, so if one showed up I'd feel selfish for causing it in our desire to have a baby. So now that we've passed the a/s and the f/e without any red flags popping up, I'm feeling a little better.

Physical Therapy

More than a month ago, my old sciatica issues began creeping up in my left hip, but muscle, & leg. Back in college, I bent down to get laundry one day and threw out my back. (See? Laundry is dangerous, people!) It was random and out of the blue, but they checked me and said it was not doing to permanently injure me. After working on some stretches for a couple months, I got it to subside. I always figured it'd show back up in pregnancy, especially since it's a common pregnancy symptom for people who even haven't had it previously.

At my last appointment, I asked about what kinds of stretches/exercises I could do safely with being on pelvic rest. Answer? Not much. As the baby has growth spurts, so does my spotting, so I'm being more careful these days than I have been in the last month or so. (I never got all the way to NOT careful, but I stopped walking on eggshells!) So today started my "supervised" stretching and hopefully we'll find a solution.

I'm going to PT a couple times a week for a few weeks to see what kind of progress we can make. Tonight's session was mostly diagnostic. We checked my hips and leg length first. At least since my fibro diagnosis, and possibly since before then, my left leg has been shorter than my right leg due to my hips being crooked. We were thinking that maybe since connective tissue relaxes in pregnancy, my hips could be normal and my orthotic & lift would be over-correcting. For better or worse, I'm still crooked so my orthotics are still A-OK. My front tendons are super out of wack. One is right under the surface and one is more than an inch further in. That's certainly not helping! We did a few isometric stretches where I only moved a leg a centimeter or two with the therapist providing the tension. Then she did massaging in a certain direction to release some pressure.

While I was sore when I got home, it's a good sore instead of a bad sore. Hopefully this works!!

Monthly Appointment

I'm at about 21 and a half weeks now. We had our regular monthly appointment today and had the doctor I like the best. She shared the official results of our anatomy scan from a couple weeks ago. Everything is officially ok. However they are recommending that we do a fetal echo (heart test) because we had to do ICSI. Nothing is appearing wrong based on this test, but they recommend double checking. Medicine has come so far that if they find a problem now, they can solve them sooner. Hopefully they won't find anything to solve.

Anatomy Scan

Today was our big 20 week ultrasound. Thankfully, the baby has all the body parts it needs and they all appear to be working properly. We were a little concerned that there was a problem with the heart because the ultrasound tech spent a lot of time there and was making faces at the computer screen, however, it turned out that the baby just wouldn't get in the right position to get the necessary pictures.

For the last couple weeks, people at work have been asking constantly when we were going to find out the gender. It fascinates me that people care so much. I have noticed that the few people I know that are part of the "IF Club" don't ask. They know that it doesn't matter. They know that even the "oh as long as it's healthy!" line is annoying too. Because I wouldn't love the kid any less if it wasn't healthy. We did all the genetic testing and screening not because we would have chosen to end the pregnancy, but to be prepared. When you're used to doctors giving you bad news all the time, you like to go in to things with your eyes open. So honestly, we're just hoping for human. And today's scan told us that's what we are getting!

Today was also the first time I "outed" us on Facebook and Twitter. Yesterday I was able to tell my former boss in person (and she totally wins for best reaction, by the way!) and the last couple friends of my husband were emailed, and that covered our bases for people who would kill us if they found out on FB. I also felt secure enough to share the news after a positive scan. It was scary to do, but I did it anyway. Then 5 minutes later the bleeding was back and I was second guessing my decision!!!! But deep breaths .... we're half way there.

October visit

We had the same doctor this month as last time and our appointment was pretty quick again. I thought I was going to get a flu shot, but their paperwork wasn't set up yet so I escaped that fate for awhile. (You'd think I'd be over the needle thing by now!!!!) I'm pretty concerned about the flu shot thing because of my weird reactions to all medicines. I've been advised in the past to avoid the flu shot, but this is a different situation so I have to defer to the OB. All I can do is hope for the best! Now, to keep my fingers crossed that we make it to our next month appointment without an emergency visit in between!!

Answers, Maybe!

Thankfully, this story ends with "and then it was all OK and we went home."

Yesterday for the first time I had extreme discomfort at the same time I had increased bleeding. It continued into today, so I called and gave them an update and they asked to see me. (Luckily they asked to see me in the office, not the ER!) The nurse listened to the heartbeat and was ready to send me on my way. I finally put my foot down and was insistant. I told her that I didn't just call the doctor when I had a question or problem just so that I could get a heartbeat listen. Maybe some people do that, but that's not what I wanted. I kept explaining what was different about this time and why I called, because I don't call every time I bleed. (I'd need a constant open line for that!)

She decided to call in a midwife to check my cervical length just to make sure that wasn't the problem. The second the midwife peeked, her face turned white. (Bad poker face, lady!) She said there was something coming out of my cervix that concerned her. I said OUT OF MY CERVIX? She said it could be a polyp, but that she's never seen a polyp that size so that it could be baby. I said but we just heard the heartbeat! She said she knew, but this was important enough to get the doctor out of L&D downstairs.

So then I spent 20 minutes partially covered by a piece of paper, shivering and shuddering from stress. Thank goodness my husband was there. The midwife kept coming in to check on us with her "I'm sorry I caused this panic state, but I have no words to say to make you feel better because I don't have a good feeling about this" face.

When the doctor came up, he got filled in on the situation and looked and determined that it is indeed a polyp. Woohoo! The midwife let out the biggest sigh of relief I've ever seen from a medical person. So then I had a thousand questions, all of which were pretty much answered with "we don't know." He didn't say it was going to cause a huge problem, he said it could shrink, grow, or fall off, but that they cause bleeding in the instances I have been experiencing it so that's probably our culprit. Whew.

September Visit

Today was our every-4-week visit and the first with a doctor. I liked him because he was down to earth. He gave us the results of our NT scan, listened to the heartbeat, answered a few questions, and sent us on our way. When we were at the NT scan they told us everything looked ok, but with my blood work added in, the chances of several various chromosomal disorders are very low. They can never be zero from this test, but I was happy to hear that the odds are low, especially since our first miscarriage was the result of a chromosomal abnormality. One more milestone down!