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2004-03-11 - 1.54pm��previous entry��next entry
Update on my scan this morning
Wow, everyone is soooo nice to me! :) Thank you all so much for all the guestbook messages and emails, I feel so supported and loved, and that makes a huuuge difference.
Well I slept badly and needed the lamp on all night - I felt like a little child, all insecure. I woke every hour, and around 6am I had such a horrible dream. Neil and I were standing waist deep in the sea, and there was a wall that was above the water level, sort of a barrier between the nice shallow waters that we were paddling in and the deep vast ocean. This little wave came, and I went to jump it, but it came over my head, and when I tried to swim to the surface, the surface wasn't there. The water swept me and pulled me over the wall (now submerged miiiles below the water) towards the ocean, and I struggled to swim against the current to the land. I surfaced, and saw that everything was stormy and turbulent. Neil was trying to sleep (?!!), floating on the waves, oblivious to the fact that he was in danger. I was screaming at him to swim, but he wouldn't. Somehow I managed to swim against the current, but it took all my strength. Then I woke up.
I think that definitely relates to our situation at the moment, but I can't be bothered to figure out how.
I had hardly any spotting on my pad this morning, and the only stuff that was there was brown. I was nervous to get upright, so I stayed in bed for aaaages, and eventually Neil made me get up and pee. I had a slight spot of brown after I peed, but that's all, and then I took a quick shower and didn't bleed after that either.
I felt too queasy and nervous to eat any breakfast, even though I tried to eat my toast, I just couldn't.
We went to the hospital for the scan, and I had to fill in a form about my bleeding and any pain (no cramping today), etc. Then we waited like 45 minutes (!!) for someone to call us in - I was going out of my mind, I felt yucky and being in hospital made me nervous and I just wanted to get it over and done with.
But eventually we were called, and we went in this TINY room where there was a lovely lady who was the radiographer/sonographer, and a guy who she was showing lots of things to so I'm guessing he was either a student or someone qualified but learning. They were both really nice.
I had to take off all my clothes on the bottom half and lie on the tabley thing with a sheet over me for privacy. I couldn't really see the screen because of the angle, but I leaned up on my elbows and craned my neck round (not comfortably!) so that I could see. Neil sat next to me and he could see the screen as well. I had a trans-vaginal ultrasonic scan, which was not exactly fantastically comfortable, but it was okay. The sonographer was great. She instantly found a gestational sac. I had seen them on other people's diaries and fertility boards, so I knew what it was as soon as I saw it. She said, "Well there's the gestational sac!" and when she changed the angle she could see and point out the yolk sac. She said it's a good sign to see a yolk sac, but it's too early to see a baby yet. She couldn't see a fetal pole (visible evidence of a baby) or a heartbeat, but she said at 5 weeks and 6 days, it is too early to expect that. She scanned my ovaries and measured them, and said they are very normal and healthy looking :) It hurt when she scanned my ovaries, enough for me to voice it. She said she was actually touching my ovary with the probe, and they are extremely sensitive to touch!
Here are the scan pictures so you can see (explanation below):
It's a bit blurry and small because I had to scan them into the computer and it didn't come out too clearly. That black oval shape is the gestational sac, and all the snowy grey is my womb. So I know I have not miscarried (as in, passed anything) and I am relieved that I do not have an ectopic pregnancy! In the first picture you can see a tiny white dot in the black oval shape, which is the yolk sac. It's just the top of it, you can see the bottom too in the non-scanned photo, but it didn't come out well enough here.
When I saw it, I was hoping she would say that it was the baby, but it was the yolk sac. I wish I had been able to see the baby. It is definitely in there, but we have no way of knowing if it's alive or not.
Okay, in the middle picture, it's kind of dark, but you can see the gestational sac, and then to the right there is another little dark sac which has a little white marker over it. The sonographer said this is a patch of "bruising", which may be where I am bleeding from, or it may not. Anyway, she didn't seem overly concerned by it, apparantly it's not uncommon. She said some women have those, and some bleed and some don't.
The bottom picture is just another shot of the sac. She measured the sac, height, depth and width, and it measures at 5 and a half weeks. She seemed satisfied with that because it's pretty much where I am at in my pregnancy, but I am worried that it is a little behind and therefore might indicate that the pregnancy stopped a couple of days ago.
Anyway, after the scan got uncomfy, she took the probe out, which freaked me out by bringing out a TON of blood, enough to soak the sheet. It was very dark brown though, and she said it was old blood, possibly had been sitting there waiting to come down from yesterday. It has to be red to indicate fresh bleeding. So I am trying not to freak out too much about that. Poor Neil, he went kind of lightheaded when he saw it! I cleaned up and put a pad on, and then the sonographer said I had not yet miscarried, but that things could go either way at this point. She said they couldn't diagnose anything for sure, without seeing the baby or a heartbeat, so she wants to do a repeat scan in 7-14 days time. She sent us into a consulting room and said someone would come to talk to us about it in a moment.
So we sat for a while, and then a midwife came and talked with us and took down more details and wrote a letter for my GP, and when I asked, she photocopied some of my scan pictures so I could take them home :) She was lovely. I asked about the 5 and a half weeks thing, with the gestational sac. She said maybe I ovulated a little later than I thought. I said I had been charting and was pretty sure of when I ovulated. I asked her, if I was sure of my ovulation date, could the fact that the sac measured a few days behind mean that the pregnancy had ended. She said yes, it could indicate that the pregnancy was failing, but there was no way to know for sure until the follow up scan. She asked if we wanted it sooner, or later. I said sooner, at the same instant that Neil said later! He wanted to have a more dramatic confirmation by waiting longer. I just wanted to get it done and dusted, as soon as it was possible to confirm things. So she has booked me in for a repeat scan at 8.45am (!!!) next Friday, in 8 days time. I will be exactly 7 weeks that day, and she said if the pregnancy was normal, the gestational sac would have grown a lot, there will be clear visible evidence of a baby, and we will be able to see the heart beating. So we will know for sure, one way or the other. Phew.
So now we just have to wait till then. Today when I peed, it felt like I was passing little bubbles or grit, and my bladder has felt sooo sore since then. I didn't drink much at all yesterday, and I am prone to getting this kind of thing if I don't keep my fluids up. I mentioned it to the midwife incase it's a bladder infection, and she said I should drink TONS today and have some cranberry juice too. She gave me a urine specimin pot and told me to take a sample to my doctor if it persisted or got worse, and ask for antibiotics that are safe for pregnancy.
She said I may bleed again, and if I get red bleeding or start cramping a lot, I should go to my doctor so that he can refer me for another scan, even if that's earlier than next Friday. We need to know if I have miscarried so that I can have the Anti-D because of my blood type. I need to have it within 72 hours of miscarriage.
So that's it really. Bean is still inside me, but I don't know what to think. I am not even too comfy calling it Bean right now, because I am desperate not to get attached. Bean may be dead, and it may just be a matter of time before I miscarry. Or not. I am scared silly of getting my hopes up too much so that I turn up on Friday hoping to see a baby and a heartbeat. I can't imagine how crushing that will feel if I don't see that, and I have had my hopes up. I want to keep my hopes low, in that way I can protect myself a little. I don't know how I'm going to wait till Friday, or what to think until then. I will try my best not to jump on pregnancy symptoms or think about Bean's development during that time, since Bean may not be making any further developments now :(
I will keep writing here to keep you updated and to vent any thoughts or feelings I have, but I think it may be a difficult week, and we just have to wait. I'm sure I forgot to say something, but I can't remember it now. I'll write again if I remember it, or if I bleed again of course I will update straight away. Thanks so very much for all the support, I appreciate each and every one of you soooo much. xxxx
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