Tomorrow is my 28th birthday. All week I have been praying that my birthday wish will be granted...that today's ultrasound would show that I am still pregnant with a baby who still has a beating heart. And today, my friends...God granted my birthday wish! (Good news first just for you Mrs. Ruedebusch!)
Baby M is measuring at 12 weeks exactly! He or she is catching up to what we thought would be our original due date of August 12th. In the beginning the baby was measuring 3 days behind at the first two heart beat ultrasounds and 2 days behind at our last ultrasound. Today the baby is measuring just 1 day behind and the doctor changed my due date from August 14th to August 13th. Baby M is nice and snuggled inside my uterus. I think he or she was sleeping in the beginning of the ultrasound. There wasn't much movement going on and the baby had its arm over its head the whole time until the tech asked me to cough and started wiggling the prob around to get the baby to move. The arms started waving and legs started kicking which was adorable to see! She couldn't get a great picture of the back of the neck which is what she really wanted to see today, but she said from what she could see the nuchal translucency looked normal.
We got my blood drawn today for the Harmony free cell DNA test to make sure the baby's chromosomes are normal. We were able to opt out of ability to find out the gender through the DNA test since we don't want to know this early. I had asked the doctor if they would not upload the results on their patient portal (which is an app that shows all lab results) since I thought it would also show the gender results so she asked the lab tech how they could accommodate my request. It was as simple as checking a box opting out of the finding out the gender chromosomes.
I got to meet another OB in the practice today and liked her just as much as my OB. We scheduled me to meet with my regular OB in 2 weeks to have some more blood work done. We are going to keep an eye on my TSH to make sure it doesn't get too high since I stopped taking the Synthroid. The results from last Tuesday's blood draw were perfect so she wanted to retest it again 2 weeks from now. This morning was my very LAST progesterone injection (hallelujah!) so we are going to check my progesterone level in 2 weeks also to make sure it hasn't dropped too much. I will also get to have a doppler done to check the heart rate:) Our next ultrasound is scheduled for Tuesday, February 24th....I will be just about 16 weeks at that point!
Other than all my regular OB stuff...I got word today from Dr. Braverman's office that my autoimmune blood work came back great. I can start titrating off of Prednisone (maybe my puffyface will go down?!) and will be completely done with it at 14 weeks. Next Wednesday is my last intralipid infusion too. I will really miss my home health nurse, Lisa, who has been fantastic. Dr. Braverman just wants one more autoimmune panel of blood tests completed next week and then it sounds like he is releasing me from his care. The only meds he is recommending that I continue are the Metformin and Lovenox.
It feels so good to be able to smile today, knowing Baby M is doing so well. It's been 7 years since I have celebrated a birthday while pregnant. The last one being my 21st birthday. After losing Riley I knew I wanted children more than I wanted to accomplish any other thing in my life. I wanted to have a completed family by the age of 30, with 3 or 4 little ones running around. It didn't seem like a far fetched goal at the time. And when I got pregnant at 25 after we got married, I really thought we were going to be able to accomplish that goal. But when my 26th birthday was spent recovering from my first d&c, we lost another baby before turning 27, and at 27 years old I was gearing up for our first IVF cycle....that goal seemed to be unrealistic. At this point, I will be thankful for one child before the age of 30. And I will be perfectly okay with having baby #2 (hopefully) after the ripe old age of 30...which really doesn't seem that old anymore!
This weekend we will be celebrating not just my birthday but also making it to 12 weeks! It's such a huge milestone since we have passed the week of our furthest miscarriage. Saturday afternoon we will be getting our first trimester maternity pictures and then we are going to the movies with my parents, sister, and niece to see Paddington, and then we are meeting my grandparents for pizza. I might celebrate with a virgin strawberry daiquiri:)
Today we wish Grandpa Dale (my husband's father) a happy heavenly birthday and send him all our thanks for helping God pull off such a big miracle for us!
3 comments:
What an absolutely wonderful birthday gift!!!
This was the post I've been waiting to see! I am so glad things are going so well and I feel like I'm waiting in anticipation with you at every step. For me too, getting past that point in time I was when I lost my daughter, was hard but a relief. I was scared the whole time, but it was a relief just making it past that date Mine was very different as my daughter died due to me getting sick with the flu, but nonetheless, I still was petrified I'd lose my next child. I am so happy for you.
Wonderful news! And Happy Birthday!
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