Week 13 - Meeting our Wiggler!

Week 13 - September 5 - 11th

This week was a HUGE one - lots and lots going on! I think it is definitely going to be a two post explanation...so part 1...

Week 13 started with an early morning appointment for our nuchal translucency scan and then the corresponding blood work. I was super crazy excited to see our baby! Our last look was at 5 weeks 6 days - it was wonderful to know we had a heartbeat and that things looked good - but honestly - we had a cheerio size blob that flickered - it didn't exactly look like a baby. To add an element of challenge to the experience I started grappling with either an extra surge of allergies or acquiring the cold Daniel had brought back from Maryland. On Wednesday night before my appointment, slept badly because my throat was so burny/sore, and woke up Thursday morning obsessed with making sure I was either continually consuming cough drops or water to keep my throat in check. I wasn't fully sure at my appointment whether it was a cold or allergies so I just kept my mouth shut about it - I had called at least eight times to get this appointment set up (we were totally unimpressed with this office, but Daniel's insurance company required us to use it for the NT scan) and because they had procrastinated in getting us an appointment I was right on the end of the NT scan window, so I was having the scan darnit!

 

This was one of the appointments I told Daniel he should also attend, so we both drove separately so he could go onto work and met up in the waiting room. I had gotten an 8:30 appointment - second appointment of the morning, so I figured we shouldn't run too late, right? Totally wrong. The number of people in this waiting room kept increasing...rapidly...and the rate at which they were taking people back was...incredibly slow. Daniel had a meeting at 10 in Malabar and we weren't even called back until 9:20 or so... How can an office be running 50 minutes behind for their second appointment of the morning? And, their computer system was down which wasn't helping matters either. And the whole time we are waiting we can overhear bits and pieces of conversation going on in a side room between the doctor and what sounded like other techs/nurses - all laughing and carrying on. Daniel turned to me and sternly said - I am. very. unimpressed. And then I reminded him this office was Harris' pick.

 

But...they finally called us back! They had a flat screen TV mounted across from the exam table so we got to watch the whole scan - very exciting! And then - we saw Baby Hals! YAY! Cuteness, actually-looking-like-a-baby, and squirming around! When the tech first started the scan Baby Hals was face down, burrowed into my tummy (which I thought was adorable), but evidently that wasn't the angle the tech needed.

Baby Hals is a snuggle bum! All burrowed into my tummy!

She checked some different things, checked the heartbeat (150 bpm) and let us hear it, and then decided to try to get the baby to roll over - which I found hilarious. She was wiggling and jiggling my belly with the wand and I was laughing quite hard - but sure enough after just a few seconds Baby Hals was like *sigh, fine!* and rolled over so she could get the shots she needed. From that angle we could see way more kicking and arm waiving - it was all really exciting! I have told my friends that since the appointment I have realized that I am now envisioning the baby as looking exactly as he/she did in the ultrasound - so at the moment I can picture nothing other than a black and white, granulated, low resolution baby wriggling around - if I give birth to something that looks different I may be confused! Haha. But no, seriously - when I put my hand on my tummy now there's a black and white, granulated, low resolution baby inside.

Baby Hals at 13 weeks! :)

And so there's Baby Hals! And he/she has all of his/her major body parts and all of those body parts were where they were supposed to be - woohoo!!!! Wonderful news! Once the tech finished - she was really very sweet, but I felt like she felt very rushed (ahem - they were super behind at this point and their waiting room was almost full), the doctor eventually came him and said pointed out that he could see an intact nasal bone which lowered the risk of Down's syndrome to something like 1-700, then he said my age lowered the risk further, and said the nuchal fold was exactly what it should be, and said the number was more like 1-3300 or something like that and said the bloodwork would give us an even more accurate idea. All awesome news! Daniel hit the road to try to make his meeting and I waited while they tried to figure out what kind of paperwork they were going to send with me to take to my doctor if the computers were down.

 

I took a pathetic looking piece of paper that was a photocopy of essentially a post it note with some stuff scribbled on it with me and headed the half mile down the road the my midwife's office (it's a practice that's a blend of midwives and doctors - but I have really loved working with them so far). I signed in for blood work and then waited for quite a while and was eventually brought back - they needed blood to check my thyroid levels (family history makes me super high risk for issues...it's affected almost every single woman on my side of the family), blood type (I knew I was O- but they wanted to confirm and check for any RH antibody issues - Daniel's +), regular pregnancy related blood work, NT testing related blood work, bunches of stuff. Seven vials later (a new record for me) - and this woman had the magic touch - having blood drawn doesn't usually bother me anyway - but this woman was particularly impressively good! I finally left - I had started all this craziness at 8:15 and was leaving at 11. Good grief. Good thing I hadn't been teaching and told them "oh, I'll be back by x period" - it would have been a total lie and I would have been a stress ball.

 

I thought about rewarding myself by stopping for lunch somewhere - but honestly by this point I was feeling worse and worse - I was pretty sure I was siiiick. :( And all I wanted to do was go home and curl up. So I did. We had an appointment with a realtor the next day (Daniel already had the unofficial offer, so we wanted to go ahead and get rolling on figuring out what to do about the house - we were hoping to sell and wanted the realtor to come by and talk to us about improvements, staging recommendations, etc). So...only some rest for the siiiick. I gave myself two hours of crashing time on the couch, nursed a can of soup and some tea, called Daniel to whiiiine and tell him how much my throat hurt and how I was going to need him to go to the store on the way home to buy me siiick food (like throat pleasing ice cream). And then I decided to cave and take the first tylenol of my pregnancy (I had made it thirteen weeks!) but yeah - omgoodness! I just took one and it took the edge off my miserably sore throat and I managed to buck up and finish the sorting and tidying I had to do in my office (that was the last big task I had on my pre-realtor list). That two hour stretch was all I had in me and I quickly down spiraled from there through the rest of the evening.

 

The cold killed the pregnancy hunger and what little appetite I had started to regain. :-/ Daniel was very sweet that evening and I was a shivering, miserable mess who put herself to bed early. He even did the evening dog walk for me.

 

I felt way better the next morning - but the cold was not gone. The extra awful siiiick feeling was, but cold related fatigue and symptoms and stuffiness lasted the whole rest of week thirteen (and honestly - I am into week 14 now and 12 days later I STILL have a freaking cold.) I REALLY miss my pre-pregnancy immune system. Pre-pregnant me had an immune system of iron from teaching - sometimes Daniel would get sick and I never would - otherwise I beasted most all colds within 1-3 days. Seriously. I think not slamming the cold with cold medicine from the start is another major detriment to cold killing. I think there is a lot to be said about tackling the symptoms head on right away.

 

But...Friday was full of all kinds of excitement...so much that I think it deserves a separate post! Stay tuned!

 

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