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2007-08-06 - 11.16pm��previous entry��next entry
13 weeks, nuchal scan - good and bad news...
What a lot to write today!!
The good news is that everything with Beanlet was FINE at the scan - I will go into that more in a minute!
But the bad news is that I got up with Matthew in the night at around 3.30am, DESPERATE to pee. I breastfed him first and then he was cranky being taken off the breast, so I did a really bouncy rocking walk to get him to sleep FAST (I just had to peeeee!), and put him down in his cot again. Then I went for my blissful pee, but in the dark when I wiped, I could see something VERY dark on the toilet paper, so I knew I was bleeding :( I went back with the torch and it was red blood again, urgh. I started really cramping pretty much just seconds after I saw the darkness on the tissue, just like the last time. I was so nervous to have it get really heavy and just start pouring out of me like last time. I knew it was the middle of the night and nothing much could be done, so I just put a pad on and went back to bed. It took me an hour or so to sleep because I was just so nervous about it. I tried not to be though. I figured at least I was resting completely for the next few hours!
When I woke up I anticipated that any bleeding that would have continued if I had got up in the night, was probably going to be sitting there waiting to come down when I got up. It's scary when that happens, so at least I had mentally prepared myself for it. But it wasn't so bad. I was just so relieved that it wasn't a heavier blood loss. It did pick up after I got up, but it was mostly brown so I was at least reassured that it was old blood from the bleed in the night.
But poo, another bleed! :(
So I went to the scan as normal and decided I would just mention it at the start of the scan.
We took the boys with us in the tandem pushchair. We don't have anyone who can watch them for us, so they had to come too. Thankfully the hospital lets you bring your children with you, but I noticed on the form for my 21 week scan, it says to please TRY not to bring very small children with you as the sonographers need to concentrate without distractions! Oops! They were running late and we were early, so the boys had a pretty long wait. Neil pushed them around in the pushchair and they looked at the fish in the tank and played in the play area a bit. They did soooo well! We got lots of lovely compliments! The receptionist was all gooey over them :)
She asked me how old they were, and when I said they were two and one, all the ladies behind reception gasped, and she said, "Gosh, you're a glutton for punishment!" I got that exact line from my next door neighbour last pregnancy. It's always said so cheerfully, but I still HATE it! Even more annoying last time was the fact that I didn't really stand up for myself about it. I just kind of went, "Yeah" and did a nervous laugh. Tsk! THIS time I said cheerfully, "Oh, I love it!" :) Go me! I figure I am going to hear a LOT of these kind of comments, starting this pregnancy. If I DO end up having the big bunch of kids that I want, I will get worse than the glutton-for-punishment one, I'm sure. I am arming myself with cheerful comebacks in preparation!
Anyway, the boys did so well. The appt was at 12 noon, and they normally eat lunch between 12 and 12.30, so with the appt running late, it was hard on them. When we finally went in to the scan, they were kind of annoyed with life. Matthew was crying and being screechy, and Arthur was saying he didn't want to be in this room, etc. We had forgotten to bring toys/books for distraction, but we had brought packed lunch. I asked if we could give them something to eat in there, and the lady said, "Well, not really" but she let us anyway.
The first thing she saw about the baby was that it was in a very difficult position for the nuchal scan and the crown-to-rump measurement. It was lunch time and she couldn't hang around a long time as she had somewhere else to be. So eventually it was arranged that another sonographer would do my scan in about 5 minutes, during which time I would do all sorts of funny walks (!) to try and encourage Beanlet into a more favourable position. It was also an ideal moment for the boys to leave. Neil took them outside and they ate lunch at a bench. Neil said it was okay that he wouldn't see the rest of the scan, because at least he had seen the baby moving about with the 5 minutes we'd had already, so that was okay.
Before all that, when we went in to the scan, I did mention the fact that I had bled heavily at 11 weeks and had a scan. I told the lady that they didn't see a source of the bleeding at all, but said my placenta was low-lying. She said, "What?!" and looked like that was a kind of weird finding after a heavy bleed, to have nothing to show for it. I told her that I started bleeding again during the night and that I was still bleeding now. She thanked me for letting her know and started the scan. The FIRST thing she said was, "You have a haematoma..." and pointed to a HUGE black hole in my womb on the screen. It's a big patch of bleeding (probably pooled blood which may have become more like a blood clot by now), next to the placenta, and RIGHT up against Beanlet's little amniotic sac :( I have seen one at an early scan with Arthur, but this one was huuuge. It unnerved me! She spent a while taking measurements of it and told me that because it's new and unreported, and because of its size, she would need to talk to the consultant about it after she had scanned me. She said he might want to see me.
My haematoma measures 7cm by 4.5cm by 2.7cm - as big as Beanlet. Beanlet measured 7.1cm today from crown to rump. It makes me anxious that it's as big as my baby!
Anyway, so after the five-minute jiggle (!), I lay back down for the new sonographer to try the scan again. She was the same lovely sonographer that we had for BOTH the boys' 21-week scans, where we found out they were boys! She didn't seem to remember us though, but then, she must see sooooooooo many women over the years!
Beanlet had moved into a lovely position for the nuchal scan! Yay! Beanlet was lying on his/her tummy against my placenta (face down, she said)! How sweet! She zoomed in on the nuchal fold and freeze-framed the image to measure it. I have seen nuchal folds recently enough to instantly see that Beanlet's was lovely and thin, so I knew it would be a good result :) It was thinner than Arthur's was. Matthew's was thinner than Arthur's too. But Arthur's was still thin enough to give a very low risk of Down's Syndrome.
While she filed the measurement she was saying what a perfect position the baby was in and how it was worth waiting for, and at that INSTANT I felt Beanlet do something. I wasn't sure what, because the movements I'm feeling are still so little, but I felt as though he/she might have flipped into a completely different position. I didn't mention it though! Then the sonographer said that the position was so perfect that she would just take one more measurement, and when she went back to the normal scan view, Beanlet had indeed changed position! I love when I feel my little ones shift around inside me, even this early on, and can tell before anyone else that they have moved! :) Beanlet had flipped onto his/her back, so it was still a good position for a nuchal measurement, and she took one anyway.
It was also a lovely position for pictures! We paid the �3 for 3 pictures when we arrived, and the lady took 3 pictures, each one 5-10 seconds apart, while Beanlet was lying there on his/her back. One of the little hands was up by Beanlet's face and I watched it open and close just in front of Beanlet's nose, just slow and lazily. It was so lovely!
Here are the pictures!! The first one is the nicest profile because it's so neat and you can see the little leggie bent up to the tummy so clearly. In this one, Beanlet's hand was almost into a fist in front of his/her nose. In the second picture, Beanlet had extended the forefinger and was opening up his/her little fist :) I think Beanlet had the flat of the hand against his/her face in the last one. The big thick grey pillow (about as thick as Beanlet) underneath Beanlet is my placenta. You can't see the haematoma much in these pictures (a ton were printed off of just the haematoma, for the consultant to see, and for my notes), but the very edge of it is visible in the first picture. You can see the little wall that rises up behind Beanlet's head quite clearly in that picture, which is the amniotic sac. The blackness beyond the amniotic sac directly behind Beanlet's head is the blood. I hate seeing it! But it's only a tiny part of the whole haematoma in these pictures.
Anyway! I was so happy to see my little love! The baby is so well in proportion now, and looks more "real baby" like than even the scan I had at 11 weeks! The legs and arms are really long and moved about a lot. Two things I couldn't get a chance to see at ALL that I really wanted to check were a) the feet - I just want to see straight feet. I know we could have another baby with Arthur's curly feet issues. And b) the bits! Not even the slightest chance of seeing any potential baby boy bits, as Beanlet was only ever sitting like in a bucket with the sonographer unable to get a good view sideways on (let alone from an underneath angle!), or sideways on from front or back. The first sonographer did zoom the scan probe round all over the place for a while though, trying to find an angle to get a good measurement, so we saw all sorts of parts of Beanlet flashing before our eyes at a fast pace as she whizzed round him/her looking for a good view! Neil says he kind of expected to clap eyes on SOMETHING if there were boy bits, even something that made him slightly suspicious, with the view on the screen whizzing around the baby from so many angles. He thinks that, because he didn't, maybe the baby is a girl after all? But I think there really was NO WAY that we could have seen boy bits, even if there were any. So we'll just have to be clueless for a while longer!
I did see such sweet little movements with the hands and the arms and legs though. Beanlet was lifting his/her chin and moving around pretty gently for the time we were watching the screen. There were only really big movements when we weren't watching for a moment, like while measurements were being taken! I saw the umbilical cord pulsating away! I don't know why, but that was just such a precious thing to see for me. At that moment, the baby was quite still - I could just see little fidgetty movements with the hands, and floating near them was a loop of the umbilical cord. It was pulsating so strongly (with the baby's pulse-rate) that it was moving more than the baby was! It was just blipping gently as it floated. I don't know why that was such a tender moment for me. It just was :)
The sonographer showed me Beanlet's little brain, the two lobes in the skull, and said that it all looked good for this stage. My report sheet says that the skull/brain appears normal, and that both hands and feet were visible :) I saw the little heart beating away (such a precious sight, no matter how many times I see it!). Beanlet's measurement is recorded as 71.1mm, crown-to-rump. Which dates as 13 weeks and 1 day. This is the 3rd scan running where Beanlet has consistently measured one day ahead, so they have changed my due date to February 10th instead of the 11th. I am happy with this. The one day ahead thing seems so consistent that I will go along with that. It DOES give me one less day to play with at the end before they go all gung ho on me about getting induced (*sigh*) but hey ho! It seems more accurate to go with the dates by the 3 scans I've had in the high-accuracy time frame so far. So I will change my ticker by one day after I post this entry! And now I am 13 weeks and 1 day pregnant! Yay!
Beanlet's nuchal translucency measurement was 1.6mm, which is a good thin measurement. I think anything under 3mm is normal, and they like to see it under 2.5mm at 13 weeks, so 1.6mm is great! :) My age-based risk (at age 31) for Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) is 1 in 541. It's going up every time I have a baby because it goes up with age. But with the nuchal measurement taken into account, my risk has dropped to 1 in 2912!! Which is really low and that's great.
After the scan, the sonographer went to talk to the consultant and the midwives about my bleed, and I nipped out to see how the little boys were doing. They were still eating lunch and were doing fine. I explained to Neil that I had to wait to see what she would say about the consultant and went back inside. The sonographer said they wanted to see me asap, so she booked me into the afternoon clinic (starting at 1.30pm) and told me to go and get some lunch and then come back as soon as I could. We took the boys home and I ate soup and bread and then headed back to the hospital by myself. Matthew needed his nap and they had both had enough of being at the hospital, so it was better that they stayed home. I was fine going by myself anyway.
I got back at 1.45pm and was seen almost immediately by a really lovely consultant. He explained that a haematoma like mine DID carry a potential risk to the pregnancy, but that it really was a very small risk. He expected the haematoma to reduce by itself, and told me to expect some brown spotting and bleeding for a while. He said that would not be a bad thing at all, because then some of the haematoma would be clearing out by the fact that I was bleeding. I did find myself wondering if I had not lain back down in bed for hours, would the blood have had a chance to come out instead of sitting in my womb and forming a clot like it has? I didn't have any evidence of a haematoma last time (at 11 weeks) and I was upright all day while I bled heavily, so I reckon it had a good chance to bleed right out, leaving nothing much behind, by the time I got my scan 2 days later.
Anyway. He told me that he would like me to come back for a follow-up scan in 2 weeks, because of the size of the haematoma and the heaviness of my bleeding this pregnancy. He wants to be able to confirm that it is disappearing like it should. He said a big clot in the womb that isn't clearing up can pose problems to the baby because it's taking up space that the baby needs as it grows. But he fully expects it to clear up, so that's reassuring. He says some of it may reabsorb as well. I hope it hurries up! Sue has put me on the prayer chain, and people at church are praying that the blood reabsorbs quickly! I'd rather that than bleed it out - even though I am trying to see bleeding as GOOD "clearing out" type of thing. It's still horrible to see bleeding all the same. Today's bleed has been about as heavy as day 2 or 3 of my normal periods. Nowhere NEAR as heavy as the 11 week one, but still horrible. Blah.
This evening I had to go for a BM, and I was sooooooooo nervous. I remember the same anxiety when I had a haematoma early in my pregnancy with Arthur. I just had to tell myself over and over that it would make no difference to the outcome of the pregnancy, and try not to be scared at the ton of blood afterwards :( My bleeding has been more red since, but still brownish, and I also passed some smallish blood clots. I HOPE things are clearing out.
The consultant told me that if I have ANY further bleeding, even spotting, that is red, I should go straight in to the hospital. He said all the loss from this bleed should now be brownish until it's gone, and red bleeding, however slight, would indicate a new problem, so I should go in asap. I feel so nervous about it all.
He asked me if I had any questions and I asked about whether I needed to rest. He said yes, I should get as much rest as I could, and asked me what I did for a living! I said, "Um, I have a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old." and he said, "Oh." Hehe! He said it would be okay to carry on activities with my children as normal, but that I shouldn't do aerobics or anything (hahahahaha, I needed a good laugh!), and not to lift any heavy weights. I asked if I could lift my children and he said he thought that should be okay (aren't they as heavy as any weight I might otherwise attempt to lift?!). So that was reassuring. He said I just needed to make sure I rested whenever I could, and not over-exert myself.
After I saw the consultant, he said I would need to see the midwife for an Anti-D injection. Hmmm! I nodded and smiled and said okay, and thanked him very much for his help. I went to book the next scan, and also my routine 21-week scan (the big one, yay!), and while I was waiting in line at the reception desk to do that, the midwife actually came to find me and told me she'd wait for me when I was done! When I finished booking my next appts, she was busy getting me a drink of water from the water cooler! I have been SO well looked after today, and I'm super grateful for my great NHS care at my local hospital. I can't imagine how I could have been better treated today. I prayed so much last night and this morning that God would bless me today with GOOD kind staff and people who really knew what they were talking about, and he answered my prayers so faithfully. Thank you Lord!! :)
So I went in to see the midwife, and she went over my nuchal scan results with me again, and also the stuff about the haematoma. Then she took the (many) vials of blood that would normally be taken at my booking appt with the midwife at 15 weeks, because she said she might as well while I was there. It was so close to my booking appt and this way I would be able to get my results at that appt instead :) Then she started to explain about me getting the Anti-D, and I told her I had declined it after my bleeding at 11 weeks. She was totally open to me declining it again, and we talked about Neil's blood type for a bit. She said I should get him to come in this afternoon to get his blood type tested, and then she could get the results by tomorrow morning. So I didn't have the Anti-D jab :)
Tomorrow I have to phone the maternity unit and ask for that midwife, and she'll look up Neil's results on the hospital computer. If he does turn out to be Rh positive (he's not), I will go in for an Anti-D injection tomorrow, because it will still be within the 72 hour time frame after I started bleeding. It did make me slightly nervous for a moment though, just INCASE there is any chance that he is Rh positive - because I had such a big bleed at 11 weeks, and no Anti-D after it. But the home test was clear as day, with equal accuracy to clinical tests, so I should not allow myself to even think things like that! I KNOW he's Rh negative. I will just breathe easier when the proper lab test confirms it tomorrow.
Sooo, my next scan to check on my haematoma is at 15 weeks and 1 day, exactly 2 weeks from today, on Monday 20th. I expect I won't get chance to gaze at my little beany love much during that scan, as it's just a quick (probably) follow-up on the bleeding. But I hope they let me see my little one for a bit! And I WILL be keeping my eyes peeled for boy bits! ;) I think Neil plans to ask for time off that day as well, but if he gets it then we are wondering how we can arrange NOT to take the boys with us. And thinking ahead to the 21-week scan too. That's a lovely long scan (about an hour), looking in detail at the baby and finding out whether we're having a baby boy or a baby girl, and quite apart from the fact that the boys will NEVER manage to sit through the scan without huge trauma, I am beginning to really not want them to be there. They are too little to appreciate what we are seeing yet, and I want both Neil and I to be able to relax and watch our tiniest one. I don't want Neil to be leaning over trying to calm a tantrum just as we get the first glimpse of the sex of our baby! We NEVER leave our kids with anyone so we don't know how to arrange that, but maybe someone can take them for a walk around the hospital area (or nearby streets) for an extended time, in the pushchair even? It's a shame there's no park near the hospital for them to have a proper outing and a run about while we go to the scan. Anyway, we'll think on that one.
The BIG scan is scheduled for October 2nd at 3.30pm! I think it's entirely possible that we'll have moved away by then, but you never know. It's worth making the appt and planning on going anyway, just in case we are still here. If we DO move before then, I will have to rebook with the local hospital where we move, and they will have to give me a scan date for the 20-22 week anomoly scan there.
Oooh, I finally made Beanlet's ultrasound gallery page. I added it as an entry right before this one, and I'll make it available through the link up on the left asap, maybe even tonight if I have time.
Okay this entry is now REALLY long and it's getting late, so I must go. Still feeling really sick, and actually feeling quite exhausted again today. I hope that will be short-lived because Neil's back at work tomorrow for the rest of the week, and I need my energy back for that! I don't manage to deal nicely with the kids for the whole day when I'm really knackered. And I love them and don't want to be snappy and horrible. So I hope I get my energy back again tomorrow!
Will update again soon! :)
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