The Creature — It MOVES!
You should say that title in a Boris Karloff 1950s scary movie voice, imagining a wolf howling in the background and lightning flashing in the sky. Makes it sound great.
Anyway, had my 3rd u/s yesterday and lots of good stuff to report. Well, good stuff and two surprising things one of which could have been a huge shock to SB and I. But, first things first.
Heartbeat was 176 — nice and strong. God I love seeing that flickering.
Measures 9w1d — I was 9w exactly.
Features: could see head, torso, arm buds, leg buds, and what I swear is the beginning of faint facial features.
Surprise #1 — IT MOVES. Seriously, I was so surprised by this. I really did not expect it to move but it does. It wiggles and does a bit of a dance like the Elaine dance from Seinfield (that part was a bit disturbing but I’m marking it down to it just not knowing any better yet. I’ll show it some good dance moves if it gets here okay;)
Surprise #2 (and this is the one that shocked me) — there is a second sack. It is much smaller than The Creatures sack and you can’t see anything in it. My doctor says it has to be a split from the one embryo we put back but that it didn’t go anywhere. He says we didn’t see it on the original u/s b/c it was too small but that over the past few weeks the sack has continued to grow. He thinks it will stop growing sooner rather than later and be reabsorbed over time. He says it is nothing to worry about. I’m not worried about it but I am freaked out about how close we came to identical twins (not that we wouldn’t have been okay having twins) but you know to find out when you are nine weeks pg with a singleton that there were possibly two is just weird especially when you’ve seen the singleton twice before with no hint of a second sack. Weird indeed.
My mental state — well after that u/s I couldn’t stop smiling for about two hours. I swear to gd that my face actually hurt from all the smiling. I’m still pretty happy and I keep telling myself it is okay to take the good and feel it as much as I can because if the hurt comes there will be time to feel that too. Speaking of the hurt coming — I am very nervous about the CV.S. We are scheduled for 12/1 and we have asked for the expedited results and although they will not be final we will have an indication is something is “probably” good or “probably” bad by 12/4. We met with the genetic counsellor and she tried to balance the bad news with good news. For example, my odds, just based on my age, of having a dow.n.syndrome baby is 1:40. This comes out to a 2.5% chance of it being bad but on the optimistic side that means we have a 97.5% chance of it being okay. I’m trying to keep the 97.5% number in my head but the 1:40 is really fighting it. There were lots of other things they will test for but our odds for those happening are much higher than 1:40. Oh well, what can I do? The die is cast. This creature is what it is right now. What will happen the first week of December will have to be handled whether it is good or bad. We know what we will do if it is bad and we know what we will do if it is good. One will be despair and one will be joy.
I will sign off now. I’m in Florida visiting the in-laws for their 55th wedding anniversary so this is a mini vacation for me and a relief to be away from the cold and the job. I’ll be checking in though and I’ll definitely let you all know how it goes on 12/1. Also to those of you who celebrate - Happy Thanksgiving. To those of you who don’t — Happy Everything.
