Can nothing ever be easy?

Let me start this off by saying that I am fine and Bug is fine. But yesterday's tests did not go quite as smoothly as one would hope. The initial ultrasound was great - Bug looked fantastic, wiggling around and everything - heart, intestines, femur, nuchal fold, etc - measured right in the normal range - yippee! Then we met with the genetic counselor who was very kind and patient while we waffled back and forth about whether to proceed with the amnio.

Earlier in the pregnancy a bad result on amnio may have made us consider termination (let the hate comments begin!) but at this point, Bug was too real to us, so that was pretty much off the table. But because I've lost three babies to likely chromosomal issues (not sure about this last one, the twin we lost early in this pregnancy, but my RE is 99% sure it would be the usual chromosome abnormalities), I really did want to be able to know 100% definitively what to be prepared for at birth and if I could relax. NoodleGuy is more of an err-on-the-side-of-low-risk person whereas I'm more of the want-more-information type, so it was a tough decision since the u/s results were so clearly good. We both could see the value of doing or not doing it and finally, because we knew I would worry otherwise, we opted to do it.

Now, you might think it was a bad omen that the woman across from me in the waiting room was sobbing, huh? I felt so bad for her - she had her mom and DH/SO there, so she wasn't alone - but clearly she had gotten bad news. I've been in her place several times, so my heart went out to her especially when we realized we were stupidly sitting there with our u/s picture visible in our hands. Shame on this IF veteran! Squirrel away those pix while in waiting rooms!

Anyway, the amnio istelf was as easy as pie. Quick, relatively painless, we saw everything on u/s and saw they were nowhere near the baby. We went home, both worked from home and everything was great. No cramping, no discomfort. Until I went to the bathroom around 3:30, which was about 6 hours after the amnio. And saw my old friend, a pool of blood in my undies. When I pee'd, there were some small flecks of tissue and when I wiped (I'm not even going to bother with "TMI" because you wouldn't be here unless the gory details didn't bother you) it was bright, red blood, about the amount of a period, but just for that one wipe. So, of course, I freaked, called my OB who actually got right on the phone with me (never a good sign) and wanted me to come right back in for another u/s. While we live almost an hour away (in pouring, flood rain, in Boston rush hour traffic, no less), of course we headed right out.

I had to go into OB admitting and the real hospital because we got there after 5pm. Everyone was great but it was alot less laid back than the fetal ultrasound haven. They had to take a full history and all that jazz. But the important thing is that Bug looked fantastic, he was even giving us a thumbs up for the full 5-minute u/s! ;)


The placenta hadn't lost any fluid, there were no visible spots of blood, my cervix looked fine. I do have a low-lying placenta, which they had told me at the earlier u/s, which needs to be watched because if it doesn't move up on it's own (most usually do), then it would necessitate a c-section at delivery because there needs to be some space between the placenta and cervix for passage. So I can add "placenta previa" watch to my IF girl scout sash. The only good thing is that the placenta watch will prompt more ultrasounds to keep an eye on it, so I'll get more peeks.

The bleeding has pretty much stopped, just little flecks now, like when AF is waning. I had an OB appt this morning and she said to call in if it gets heavier and/or if it hasn't stopped in a week. I'm hopeful that this is just because I seem to be a "bleeder" - I spotted from weeks 4-6, had that heavy gushing episode at 7.5 weeks. And apparently bleeding it more common with placenta previa, so we'll see. I have another OB appt and u/s in 4 weeks if everything looks OK until then. My OB was cautious but not overly concerned since the bleeding is tapering off, though my body did cooperate with a nice, juicy fleck in today's urine sample. Just in case they thought I was a pathological liar or had Munchausen's Syndrome, I'm off the hook now ;).

By the way, Bug was not cooperating in showing off the goodies, so that will have to wait for the FISH results later today or tomorrow. Full amnio results are due in 2 weeks. I feel pretty confident with yesterday's great u/s and like an idiot for proceeding with the amnio, but there's nothing I can do about that now except take it easy and monitor the situation.

Oh, and I'll definitely be using my Doppler evry day now, at least for a while. And YIPPY again about Bug looking excellent on the level II ultrasound, that's the most important thing. I'll post FISH results as soon as I have them.