Scanning

Well, I've been on holidays at the beach for the past 12 days. We holiday in a small beach side town each year. It is an incredibly beautiful part of the world. I had decided to take the risk and book in our first viability scan for the day we were leaving for holidays. I thought this showed great faith in that the pregnancy would be okay. If it wasn't okay, I planned to head to the beach anyway and drink myself into oblivion.

The scan was with our fertility specialist - the first viability scan. I've actually never managed to have a viability scan with him due to bad holiday timing over the past year. As it turned out, this time he was going on holidays for the same days as us, so we managed to squeeze the scan in.

I was a little disappointed with the scan. He showed us one baby, with a heart beat, right at the top of the uterus. He was pretty happy about it. He said "I'm not hearing any oohhhs and aaahhhhs". So he tried to hear the heartbeat. I tried explaining, it wasn't that we weren't pleased, it's just that we've seen a lot of tiny babies, that don't even look like babies, with heartbeats. He printed a picture for us.

I have grown to hate ultrasound images. I hate everybody's ultrasound images, not just my own. If a see a friend post their ultrasound image to facebook, I have to delete/hide the post. To me they just look freaky. So Matt took the picture. He thought his family might like to see it, I said "really, why would they want to see that?"

Due to my specialist usually being on holidays, our first scans have generally been with ultrasound clinics. These scans give you sooooooo much information. You get the crown to rump length, the heartbeat rate, the size of the gestational sack, the gestational age. So when the fertility specialist showed us a blob with a heartbeat and said it looked about the right size, I was underwhelmed.

As we were both about to head off on holidays the fertility specialist gave us a referal to get a diagnostic scan done, just in case anything went a miss during the week of holidays.

We packed the ultrasound referal in our gear and headed off on holidays hoping we wouldn't need it, but that wasn't to be the case. The very next day I had a pretty heavy bleed, dark red with little clots in it. I lost it. I was crying and crying. I just hate it. One day everything is 'fine' the next day, it seems like we are about to have another miscarriage.

The worst part is, there is nothing to do about it. You just have to go to sleep, get up the next day and somehow try to enjoy your holiday at the beach. The bleed was on a Saturday so we couldn't even go for the scan until Monday at the earliest.

So we soldier on. Force yourself to get outside and enjoy the beautiful place you are in. Try not to think about it all the time. Try not to let your bad mood spoil it for everyone else who is there.

On Monday we get the diagnostic scan. The baby is still there, but we are told it is only measuring 5 weeks and 6 days and the heartbeat is 96 beats per minute. Basically, the baby is more than a week smaller than it should be. The sonographer also told us that the heartbeat would preferably be over than 100. In closing, he said the pregnancy was viable at this time, but given the result no doubt another ultrasound will be needed in another week or two.

So the baby is small, with a slow heartbeat. The same sonographer gave us similar news last year with our heterotopic pregnancy, and that baby miscarried soon after. We don't leave with smiles on our faces. My husband says on the way to the car "We know how this played out last time, but I guess we just need to give the little trooper a chance."

We had a little more spotting over the next day, but for a week now I've had nothing. I've had not bleeding. I've also had no morning sickness or other symptoms that wouldn't be caused by the progesterone pessaries I have to use morning and night.

Our first appointment with the ob/gyn I chose for this pregnancy is coming up, so I haven't bothered following up with our fertility specialist about getting another scan. I have some hope - hey, maybe it will be fine - I really hope that it is. I also have some doubts.