Totally on Purpose: Big siiigggghhh

Dear Baby TOP,

Today is August 23rd.

It's been a crazy few days, but it looks like you're hanging in there.

Yesterday I went to my midwife, Mary, at 3:30 where they drew blood again and sent it to the labs. My doctor's office doesn't have a lab so it had to go to the hospital to be tested. This meant a LONG wait. Mary told me to call her at 7:30PM if I didn't hear from her. My hormone levels were 60-thousand-something on Saturday (right on for 6 or so weeks of pregnancy) and should have just about doubled by Monday. (Crazy, right? Doubling in so short a time?? No wonder pregnant women go nuts with emotional and physical symptoms!) She said that basically we are looking for them to go up though, and not stay the same or go lower.

7:30: I called and left a message.

8:00: I called and left another message.

8:05: Mary called back to say that she had just talked to the lab and they had JUST processed the sample. It would be another hour before they had results.

9:15: Mary called back. The hormone levels were just about 100,000. A nice leap up, but not doubled. So, she said her office would schedule an ultrasound for me for as soon as possible to get a look at what was happening in there.

This morning I got a call that my appointment would be at 2PM today. I was very happy to have an immediate check on things. I drank the requisite water (this was very tough on Tiny Bladder Lady!) and, of course, the technician was running behind. AAGH! I got in at 2:30 and had an external and internal ultrasound. (Internal ultrasound? Not as horrible as it sounds, but also not a big party, let me tell ya!)

Some very good things: There is a fetus. The fetus is in the uterus. There is a clear yolk sac. There is a heart beat.

One "huh" thing: I have a couple of gestational bleeds. There's not a ton from Dr. Google on this but I understand that this is a small build up of blood in a couple of spots in my uterus. These may or may not have caused my bleeding. These things generally don't cause any problems in a pregnancy and "take care of themselves."

The technician didn't go into what course of action one might take if these things DIDN'T take care of themselves... But I'm sure Mary will go over that with me when I talk to her again.

So! You are a good little person for hanging in there and you'll be glad to know that even though you are the size of a grain of rice, you are already causing plenty of trouble!

Tonight I will sleep very, very well.

P.S. You are due April 10, 2012.

P.S. The ultrasound pictures don't look like much and the scanner and the computer are apparently not on speaking terms... So, sorry. No photos to display on the blog today!