Baby A's "Twin"

On a few of my birth month boards, women have been popping up with losses after their first ultrasound where they saw their baby's heartbeat already. That rate is supposed to be low, but each one freaked me out, especially when the woman had no cramping or spotting or anything that would indicate miscarriage. A week ago, I lost a lot of my pregnancy symptoms and that scared me so badly, I was losing sleep at night and worrying myself to tears during the day. So much so that I called my RE's office and begged to come in this week for another ultrasound, just about 10 or so days after the first one, and about 10 days before my next one. 

The ultrasound experience was fine. But, this tech was not very chatty and was not showing me anything on the screen. When she left the room to get the doctor, she was talking to me in a baby soft voice and in that moment, my heart sank and I was convinced that Baby A was no longer. I just started silently crying because I was convinced that if nothing was wrong, she would have said something about the baby's heartbeat or measurements or something.

The doctor came into the room and still, no one showed me anything on the screen. Spyro was so sweet and was holding my hand and looking at the screen, so to put me at ease, he asks the doctor "Is that the heartbeat?" When she said yes, I went from tears of mourning to tears of joy. He knew exactly what to do to reassure me, since neither the tech nor the doctor ever said anything about the baby during the entire scan . . . and DUH, that's why I went! I wanted to know if Baby A was OK!

I knew there was something wrong as they were doing the measurements because they were doing a bunch of different stuff and taking a long time to do it. It turns out they were dealing with my fibroid. I got the fibroid during this pregnancy and based on the measurements taken of it at this ultrasound, the fibroid has almost doubled in size since the last ultrasound. It's now over 3cm around and it's apparently exophytic (which means it's outside the uterus). And at 3cm, it's bigger than Baby A. I asked my RE nurse about it at my "appointment" with her afterward, and she had no information for me. Helpful. So I consulted Dr. Google, which then terrified the ever-loving shit out of me. While this type of fibroid won't lead to the placenta separating from the wall of the uterus, there is a chance that it can twist around my fallopian tubes and cause other damage. And it can also grow to be huge, which means I will probably show sooner and get bigger than I would normally during pregnancy. Awesome. And this is apparently part of my genetic legacy, since African American women are more likely to get fibroids in pregnancy.

That alien-like ball in the middle of the intestines coming off the ute is an exophytic fundal fibroid. 

I will get more information on Leonard (yes, I have named the fibroid) at my doctor's appointment next week, but it's yet another thing that scares me. I want to have a normal delivery, but depending on the size of the fibroid, it could push me to have a c-section. I don't want to deal with the pain if the fibroid dies, which could lead to some hospitalization. And on top of it, I'm really scared to be on a cross-country trip in the car for 2-3 weeks when there's a chance the fibroid could cause hospitalizing complications. So now we're reconsidering the trip we've been looking forward to so much for about a year. I'm just so frustrated and annoyed with this and wish I had real answers.

The Most Beautiful Baby in the World

I had my first ultrasound this morning and what an incredible experience it was! The ultrasound tech first did an abdominal ultrasound where she was able to see that the pregnancy was intrauterine. Cue the first round of tears. Spyro sat at my feet and rubbed one to console me through my (happy) tears. Then the doctor came in and they did all kinds of painful things with a transvaginal ultrasound wand. I can't even describe the level of pain I felt. But it was worth it when we got to see this:

Ignore the camera flash glare. My baby doesn't have a halo or anything like that.

If you can see the round dot thing above the flash glare, that is the sac. And kind of drowned out by that flash is our baby. I am 5w6d today, but the baby measures ahead very slightly at 6w exactly. And even though I had braced myself to not see a heartbeat because it's still early, Baby A surprised me by having a very strong heartbeat already. S/he had a heart rate of 109 bpm. Cue round 2 of tears.

I later met with my OB nurse who informed me that I have a uterine fibroid . . . first time I've heard that! Luckily it's still small. I'm hoping it stays small so there are no complications with the pregnancy and everything is fine. The nurse thinks it shouldn't pose any problems, so I am not feeling too upset (even after a potentially disastrous consultation with Dr. Google, which then kicked up every bit of hypochondria and fear in me).

I feel like the happiest person in the world today. We are already so in love with this baby, it's ridiculous.