It's all good

The Pea is still kicking in there!

We got a bit of a scare, though.

The doctor started by trying the Doppler and said if she couldn't find the heartbeat with that, she'd try an ultrasound. For anyone who doesn't know, a Doppler is a small handheld device that works with sound waves similar to an ultrasound, but it's audio only - it looks like a little microphone attached to a radio. Well, she felt around for what felt like an eternity and could not find the heartbeat. At that point, I wasn't scared - I know that you can't always hear the heartbeat at 10 weeks. But the doc said she would try the ultrasound. When she left to go get it, I smiled at Mr. I and said, "It's probably just too early," so he wouldn't be freaked out.

The doctor came back and gave me an abdominal ultrasound. At this point in pregnancy, an abdominal doesn't give you the greatest picture, so I couldn't really tell what we were looking at that well... I glimpsed a blobby blurry thing and the doctor said, "Well, there's the baby....." That set me off. I heard it as "there's the baby, BUT...." There was a brief silence and I started to feel some hysteria rising within me. Then she said, "It's moving around," and then I could see that it was moving. It was really hard to make out, especially since she kept moving the wand to try to get a better look. And then finally, "And there's the heartbeat." I could see just the tiniest flicker, I thought, but it was hard to see. It was a lot smaller and fuzzy than the transvaginal picture we saw two weeks ago. Mr. Ibis was peering at the screen and said he could see the heart beating. The doctor said everything looked good but I still felt unsettled.

Then she went back to try the Doppler again. Finally, she found the heartbeat. Mine was really loud and I could hear a tiny beat behind it thumping away... a couple of times she caught just the baby's heart for a second or two and we could hear it clearly. I don't think she captured it for long enough to get an exact reading, but she said it was in the 160s and sounded good. She said that my arteries run right over my uterus and that's what made it so hard to hear the baby, because my heartbeat was directly over it and blocking the sound... but next time I go back my uterus will have moved up out of that area so we will hear it better.

When we were done she asked if we had any questions and Mr. Ibis said, "So, do we just keep going about our normal lives?" Heh. She said yes, and then paused to ask about my job and whether I wear a mask at work. I said I do, and gloves too. She said "Okay, I just don't want you breathing in those fumes," which kind of freaked me out but I said, "Yeah, I try to avoid it." I mean, I do try. I wear a mask. But I have to work. I don't know, I guess she was just double checking on me. I usually only work about 4 hours a day, 4 days a week... ugh. I can't worry about it now. I don't think my exposure has been significant and at any rate I can't undo what's already been done.

Oh, and she had asked earlier if I had any cramping or spotting. I said no spotting at all, but I did have mild cramping sometimes. She said that's okay as long as there is no spotting.

The perinatologist is going to call to set up our NT screening, which is the first trimester screening that looks for trisomies (chromosomal defects). After that my next appointment is in 4 weeks.

Right now I'm happy but also just kind of frazzled and exhausted. That was a bit of a nervewracking appointment. I think Mr. Ibis was totally freaked out and hasn't even settled into the idea yet that the baby is okay.