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2007-07-24 - 11.27pm��previous entry��next entry
11 weeks, 1 day - scan update
Thank you for more lovely messages!
I haven't got much time to update but I wanted to write asap about the scan this morning.
It went really well! Hooray! Beanlet is fine, and measuring 4.17cm from crown to rump, which is 11 weeks exactly according to the scan computer, or 11 weeks and 2 days according to the report (?!). I'm 11 weeks and 1 day, so either way it's pretty accurate :) Beanlet looks just like a real baby, except with a slightly alien-shaped head! It will be more rounded by the 13 week nuchal scan.
He/she was moving about! Just little movements, tipping his/her little head to one side slightly, and then to the other, with the little arms and legs making fidgetty movements. During the scan, Beanlet completely changed position 4 times! I didn't feel that though. The sonographer only had the screen turned towards her for a second or two, and then that was all it took for her to see that everything was fine, so she turned the screen to face me and I saw my Beanlet all wiggly and cute in there. It was so lovely to see Beanlet! I saw the little heart pulsating away, and even the teeny tiny details of the little fingers and arm bones, as she showed me Beanlet's hands up by his/her face. She printed me a picture straight away without me asking (strangely different to last time! Different sonographer this time though) and told me to put it in my bag because there were people in the waiting room who were miscarrying :(
Here's my little love!
Funnily enough, it looks remarkably similar to the 8 week scan picture! But it was sooooo much more detailed. That just happened to be the shot at that instant, and Beanlet was moving a bit while she was taking a picture. You can't see Beanlet's arms up in front of his/her face, but there is actually a tiny hand RIGHT up on the top of Beanlet's head! Also, Beanlet happened to suddenly be in a chin-to-chest position at that moment, so it looks quite similar to the 8 week picture where the head was bent right over. Beanlet's little head was upright all the rest of the time. This photo was part of the crown-to-rump measurement that the sonographer was doing. You can see a little white almost-vertical stumpy bit at the bottom of Beanlet's body, and that is the thigh. The rest of the leg was bent across, because Beanlet had his/her little leggies crossed like a sort of yoga position! She tried to get me a profile of the face, but didn't manage a good one, and she said it was quite difficult to get good profile shots with a trans-vaginal scan. I should get some good profile views at the next scan in a couple of weeks :)
So, the bleeding. She saw no sign of a sub-chorionic bleed, BUT she showed me my placenta. She said, "Do you see how the edge of your placenta just touches your cervix?" So there we have it. I have a low-lying placenta. They are not worried about it because it doesn't COVER the cervix and it's very early days yet. As my uterus grows, it will pull the lower part up with it and thus the placenta should move up. I am not worried about it as I've read about it before, and my placenta isn't over the cervix even so that's good.
I saw the doctor after the scan and she told me that a low-lying placenta COULD have been the reason for the bleed. They couldn't see any other reason, but she said it still might not have been the placenta. Anyway, if it IS the placenta, then there is a chance I could bleed again like before until it moves up away from my cervix. I hope it doesn't happen again! It was horrible. I asked about the cramping and the doctor said it may be due to my body threatening to miscarry, with all the blood loss. Scary. I'm so glad that the cramping is dying down now. It hasn't all gone but it's lots better.
The doctor said I must rest as much as I possibly can all this week, and she said no intercourse for another week after that. Beyond that, if I had had no further bleeding incidents, I could go back to normal and they would not be concerned about that. Which is great! I didn't say, "Intercourse? What's that?!" but you know! That doesn't tend to "happen" to us while I'm pregnant, so that's fine! ;)
THEN the doctor wanted to give me an Anti-D injection because I am rhesus negative. I wrote a big load of stuff about the rh factor thing this pregnancy but I think it must have been lost in that one loooong entry I wrote near the beginning which got deleted when I pressed a random button (grrr!), because I can't seem to find it now. So I never re-wrote about the rh factor thing, and I should update you guys now!
The last 2 pregnancies, I have had anti-D injections throughout. But both the boys are rh negative so I never needed a further jab after they were born. The fact that they are BOTH rh negative made me think, "Hmmm...." I really began to wonder if Neil might be as well. Anyway, somewhere around 4 or 5 weeks pregnant, I finally got around to using the home testing kit for blood type (including rhesus factor) that I bought online, and Neil turned out to be A negative (I am O negative)! Yay! So I don't need anti-D at ALL! And no wonder our kids are rh negative. Tsk.
So, today the doctor said I had to have anti-D and I said that I didn't need it because my husband was rh negative. She said I should have it anyway because in case I changed partners years down the line (what?!) or something like that. And she went out to get it ready to give me. I sat in there twisting my hands and feeling really NOT happy about having the anti-D. I felt annoyed that I hadn't stood up to her, because I had sort of caved and agreed once she even slightly challenged my decision. Fortunately she was gone a good while, so I had time to get my thoughts sorted out and my courage up. I just thought, Neil and I are rh negative. This baby MUST be rh negative. So there's no "D". So there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to be giving me Anti-D.
As soon as she came in the door, I said, "You know, I'm really not happy about having the anti-D." And she said, "Oh! Are you not?" and sat down to chat to me about it, so that was good. I explained my view on it exactly as I said above about there being no "D" to give an "anti" for. She asked me when my husband was tested (why would that matter?!) and that's when I said we used a home kit recently. She went to ask another doctor and came back saying they won't rely on home kits. I told her that we had asked before about having his blood type properly tested, but that the doctor wouldn't do it unless he was having surgery or giving blood. So we couldn't find out any other way. She said I could decline against medical advice, but that I ought to have it anyway just to be on the safe side. I said, "I think I would like to decline." and she was fine, she just wrote a little report about it on the main scan report, about me declining against medical advice. I don't think I'm being silly. The home kit was from a legitimate place with accuracy the same as a clinical test. Neil's result was clear and obvious. His blood should have coagulated in the "D" field if he had "D" (the rhesus factor) present in his blood and it didn't coagulate at all. The only field it coagulated in was the A field, which shows he has the A sugar (protein?) in his blood, so he's blood group A. My blood wouldn't coagulate anywhere :) I don't have a THING in my blood. No D, no A, no B :)
Oh, in the entry that got lost, I think I posted a couple of photos of the big rh test! I'll find them at my photobucket thingy and post them here, now that I've written about it at last...
Neil soaking his hand in warm water before I poked his finger with the lancet thingy! I love this photo because he was being all, "Yeah, I'm a MAN!", doing the casual flick-through-the-TV-channels thing, and yet at the same time he was busy soaking his finger at the insistence of his control-freak wife, for a blood test, hehe!
Here's the finished test. The top left circle is the group A field (see how his blood coagulated to show he has A in his blood), the top right is B, the bottom left is the rh factor (no coagulation there) and the bottom right is the control field.
At the end of the session with the doctor, she was so nice � she gave me a path lab form for Neil to have his blood group tested :) I just have to fill in his details and then he takes it to the lab to have his blood taken! But the only thing is, he will NEVER get time to do it, because it�s only open in office hours on weekdays and he has just started a new job. So he can�t start taking time off already. He is in the 3-month probationary period, and they don�t allow annual leave during that time either. So depressing, since we desperately need some time out for him over the next 3 months. Desperately.
Anyway, but maybe one day he can get his blood tested?! I have the form now so that�s great.
Oh I have run out of time to finish this entry! And there was more I wanted to say too. I will say it anyway and try to be quick about it.
My routine cervical swab at A&E on Sunday came back showing that I am Group B Strep positive. Urrrrgh. I am kind of fed up about that. They don�t test routinely for that here, so I was never even tested the previous two pregnancies. Who knows if I was a Group B Strep carrier then too. Anyway. I need to do a lot of research on my UK homebirth sites. Basically it looks like it rules out a homebirth, but I am not quite willing to let go that easily, so I need to get myself informed properly and then see what�s what. I know that it will make getting a homebirth REALLY difficult, even if there IS an option to do it, because nobody is going to think it�s okay. Everyone will think I should be in hospital on my back with an antibiotic drip in my arm when I have my baby. That SUCKS. I know there�s genuine risk with Group B Strep, which is why I need to do my research. But it doesn�t strike me as natural � what they�re saying I have to do because of it. So... I don�t know. I have time to think about that anyway.
The last thing I wanted to say is how caught off-guard I have been by the intensity of how completely in LOVE with my baby I am. At the scan when I was watching my little one move about... I just can�t describe how I felt. I have watched two other little ones at scans, but I can�t remember this kind of intensity of love. With Matthew I remember I even found it LESS easy to bond with him earlier in the pregnancy, because he wasn�t Arthur and I didn�t know how to love a child that wasn�t Arthur! But now I know I can love ANY number of little ones! Maybe that has made the difference? But still, the huge outpouring of my affection for Beanlet � I�m not sure it has been matched in either of my other pregnancies, even when I had the bleeding scare with Arthur early on. Although, it might just be that my memory is foggy now. Anyway. I just LOVE this baby beany person with all my heart! Driving home from the hospital in the car, I was just welling up with how much love was squeeezing my heart over my tiniest one, remembering seeing the little arms and legs moving and the tiny heart beating. I got my first teeny tiny flick-like kick today whilst sitting upright � all the other flicks and swishes have been whilst lying flat or on my side in certain positions. I have felt Beanlet move several times today, and it�s soooooo lovely. I just love that little person so very much already. I can�t imagine the baby as a girl at all. My mindset is very much on a boy after these few weeks of convincing myself! I�m SO glad, if he IS a he. I know I said earlier that I thought I might be disappointed, but already I�m SO delighted at the thought of this precious baby bean being another sweet boy!
Okay it�s late now (I started this during the afternoon) and Matthew has caught Lilian�s cold (me too, I think) and is stirring, so I have to go. I�m sorry I didn�t get this posted earlier today, but here it is now! I�m so relieved and happy! I am slightly nervous about the placenta issue causing further bleeding but I just have to pray and hang in there, and hope it doesn�t happen. I am feeling really morning sick today and have felt grim through writing most of this so I am going to stop and see if Matthew is okay. But yay for morning sickness!! It�s so pregnant of me and healthily so! I hope everything stays as healthy as it is. I will update again soon! Thanks so much for all the love and support! xxx
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