First Ultrasound

I think that anyone who has ever had a pregnancy-related ultrasound will agree with me that one of the most annoying things is the rule about filling your bladder before getting an ultrasound. Ugh. Kills me. I drink a lot of water anyway, but more when I'm pregnant because these darn prenatals are loaded with iron that causes unmentionable side effects. So, back to the topic. There are detailed prep instructions before an ultrasound. For this one I had to drink 32oz of water to be completed an hour before my appointment. So, my appointment was at 4 and so that meant I had to drink a buttload of water right before 3pm. The reason I had to do it so fast is because I am pregnant, which means that as soon as I drink something, I have to pee. Well, that's what I had to avoid because the goal is to have your belly full of water for the ultrasound. I've heard different reasons of why this is necessery--to check your cervix, to get the bladder out of the way to see the uterus better, to torture naive pregnant women. Take your pick. Regardless, it's so painful I was near tears as I waited with Jeffrey for our appointment.

At 4:15 Jeffrey asked the front desk how much longer and she apologized and went to check with the US tech. She came back and said it was going to be a few more minutes and that maybe I could just release "a little" to relieve the pain. She was very nice but really? really? Do other people have this skill where they can just pee a little bit? i don't. I'm an all or nothing kinda pregnant gal I suppose. I stayed put and was called back shortly. The US Tech then asked how far along I was. She apologized and said that because I'm 8 weeks along, I didn't really need to do the water thing and I could go to the bathroom. I fled to the restroom. BTW-I tried to release "a little" and it didn't work. When I came back the tech was looking really sheepish and she told me that she checked with someone and I was supposed to drink all that water as some new policy. She said she'd do an internal ultrasound instead, which would get better shots of the baby at this teeny tiny stage anyway. What a mess.

The ultrasound went great. As soon as we saw the baby, I could see the heart beating which is an amazing thing to see! I was afraid that it wouldn't feel like such a big deal the second time around, but it totally was. it made me wonder if that wacko family the Duggars with 19 or whatever kids gets excited everytime they see the baby for the first time. Then I remembered they get excited over everything and I had my answer. We heard the heartbeat and that's just such a relief. I can't really explain it, but I was really worried this time around that something would be wrong. When I was pregnant with Connor I didn't worry about anything, or not hearing the heartbeat. I guess maybe it's because I was kinda the first in our group to have a baby (besides Car) and so I hadn't heard any sad stories of loss. By now, I have and it seems that everyone has a sad story or knows someone who went through hell and back. Well, those start to weigh on you and scare the bejesus out of you.

But back to the ultrasound. Everything looked great. The heartbeat was strong at 143 bpm and I remember Connor's was 161 which is crazy fast. The old wives tale is that faster heartbeats are typically girls--that didn't really hold true for us the first time around so i don't really subscribe to that. If we believe that theory this time around, Baby Barnes 2 (BB2) is def a boy. We shall see. Speaking of gender, our friend Stephanie Calabretti is a big believer in the Chinese Gender predictor. I'm not. So, she looked online until she found the one that worked for her (strike one--having to find the one that works) and according to that we're having a boy. Who knows.

BB2 was measuring kinda small so they thought that my due date may be moved back a bit to June 6th or 7th. But then she asked how big Connor was and said that maybe the due date is right anyway. I do remember that while I was in surgery the doctor told me that I had a "petite uterus" (creepy) and that i'd have small babies. What a creeper, but could def explain the small baby in my belly. At this point, the baby is about 5/8" and has no discernable boy or girl parts :) There's still a bit of a tail and looksmore like a tadpole than a baby. The pics we saw on the screen were pretty great, but the ones we left with are lacking. Here they are anyway.

Everything you are seeing is my uterus. The dark part is the gestational sac and the white blurry stuff in there is the baby.

They did find two cysts on my ovaries, but nothing to be concerned with. One of them is a corpus leuteum (surely spelling that wrong) and that's a good cyst to have during the pregnancy. The other is so tiny that it will surely reabsorb itself before my next ultrasound. I had the same thing when I was pregnant with Connor. I'm still pretty pukey, but now that we've seen the baby it's a bit easier to handle. I found out that the meds they gave me to help with the nausea and throwing up are what is prescribed to patients going through chemo so clearly there's nothing stronger they can give me. Oh well, it can't last forever...right?

That's all the bb2 updates for now. Stay tuned for more!