It's a....

Courtesy of Google Images

It's a girl!  I'm having a baby girl!!!  A daughter.  I'm overjoyed!  After the scan I had this peaceful feeling of calm, I realized that I felt truly happy for the first time in a very long time.  I guess it (finally) all became real.  I'm really pregnant and I'm expecting a healthy baby girl. 

The scan itself went great, she's measuring on track and everything looks good.  That combined with my 2nd Trimester bloodwork continues to keep me in the low risk category - for a high risk patient.  I will have another detailed scan at 24w, where they will take a close look at the development of her heart.  

I love being able to refer to 'she' & 'her' now, rather than 'it' or 'the baby'.

Here she is!! 18w3d

My best buddy, J, came with me to the scan yesterday.  He has never seen a pregnancy ultrasound, although he's had several of his own stomach due to gastrointestinal problems that landed him in the hospital for a couple of weeks last year.  

J is a lifelong athlete with an interest in the human body so he was enthralled watching the screen, pointing things out and asking the tech lots of questions.

We were talking about finding out, and J being there.  I said something along the lines of J being able to tell baby girl that Uncle J got to see her girl parts for the first time.  The room was silent before we all started cracking up, the ultrasound tech included, when I realized how pervy that had just sounded.  J was like, I didn't see anything!  Give me a break, I just found out I'm expecting a baby girl, my head wasn't working properly!  You know what I meant!

I have the funniest ultrasounds.

And of course, I did a little shopping for baby girl yesterday!  I'll have to take some pictures of the goods to share in another post.

Low Risk - High Risk

*All about pregnancy*

I'm breathing a sigh of relief as I am currently classified as a Low Risk, High Risk patient.  The baby passed the NT scan with flying colors although it took a while to get the necessary measurements.  With the blood results that the nurse called me with today, risk for Downs is 1:560 and risk for Trisomy 18 is 1:10,000.  She told me I'm considered Low Risk (for a high risk patient).

Another successful milestone!  Thank you God!

The NT scan itself was a lot of fun.  Fun? you ask???  Well yes, since my friend LH came with me, it was fun.  LH always makes me laugh!

The NT scan is an abdominal ultrasound.  I was so excited to 'graduate' from the Wand.  But of course, it also requires a full bladder.  Mine was full, but needed to be a little more full.  So I kept drinking water.  The baby was fun to watch and the tech took lots of pictures.  She was really sweet and very positive, immediately telling me that everything looked good, although the doctor had to come in to log the actual measurements.

There are 3 doctors in this office and 2 were out unexpectedly with the flu.  One poor doctor was covering ALL of the appointments that day.  The only part of me that minded the extra wait was my bladder. But when he finally came in he was very personable and spent plenty of time with me.

Problem was, the babe didn't want to cooperate.  He couldn't get the right angle to get the measurements.  While I have always had a really strong bladder, I was starting to suffer, especially since trying to get the baby to move included pressing hard on my belly.  Might I add, LH was getting a kick out of this whole experience, her youngest is 7 so it's been a while since she's been through this. He finally gave me the option of filling my bladder more (not possible) or relieving my bladder and doing a vagi.nal ultrasound.

No contest.

I estimate that I've had at least 100 vaggie ultrasounds in the last 2 years.  If he was going to let me go to the bathroom, bring on Wandy!

So that's what we did.  Except it was the strangest vaggie ultrasound I've ever experienced.  Even from that vantage point, he was not getting the angle he needed.  So besides pressing on my abdomen there was also poking with the Wand (back & forth - you get the picture).  At this point, I realized how inappropriate this would be in any other situation and I couldn't contain my giggles.  Once I started laughing, LH started laughing too.  I won't go into further detail on this as my MOTHER sometimes reads this blog, hi Mom!

The good thing is that there was so much talking and joking going on the entire time between the tech, doctor, LH and me, that the reason for our added laughter was not obvious although I think the tech caught on.


Finally, the doctor got the positioning he needed for the measurement and all was good.

11w6d

Again (x6)

It's the night before IUI #6 and all through my ovaries, my two big 'ole follies are growing, ready to ovulate.

So my SIXTH IUI is tomorrow morning.  And although it is my 6th time through this, I'm feeling good about my chances.  I told the ladies in the lab that "the sixth time is the charm".  

My ultrasound yesterday (CD12) showed TWO big follicles on my left ovary, at 22 and 26.  I can feel them just ready to go....  I'm asking they hold on several more hours until tomorrow morning.   While waiting on the doctor I closed my eyes and prayed I could have two or three follies ready this cycle, since all but one of my previous cycles produced a single follie.  This prayer was answered!

I started acupuncture last week.  I've been hearing so much about its infertility benefits that I decided to just do it.  While I find it relaxing, I'm not sure I would do it if I were not dealing with infertility.  It takes me 10 minutes or so to relax, but by the time the acupuncturist comes back in, I'm so totally relaxed I don't want to get up.  And I continue to feel really good and relaxed for days after.

Since my IUI is tomorrow, my beta date will be November 2.... which happens to be the same day I have an appointment with Dr. T to discuss IVF.  

My Versatile Blogger Award post is in draft form.  I just need more time to clean it up... but I will finally post it sometime very soon.