First Trimester, Check!

(LOOOONG post today. Sorry!)

So, today I am 13w3d. I have now entered the sweet second trimester. Only, for me, it hasn't been so sweet, but more on that later.

We had our NT ultrasound and blood work done on Friday, June 18th. The whole experience was pretty annoying. First, the office we had to go to was "running a little late", which means we actually got called back for our 3:00 appointment at 3:45. Then, I realized that when ever I need ultrasound work done, I should schedule it at Good Sam instead of the closer, more convenient hospital we scheduled for this. Good Sam specializes in high risk births. They have entire newly renovated floors JUST for high risk diagnostics. Which also means they have the mammajamma of all ultrasound machines. I got to experience one of those AMAZING machines the first time I went there for my (what turned out to be) 6w6d appointment. The other hospital? I'm pretty sure their ultrasound machine was from 1990.

The tech (who was nice, and did try,  I have to say) poked and prodded and squished and shoved the US transmitter all over my stomach trying to get a good view of Young Grasshoppa. Yes, I understand that I'm fat, and I understand that the baby is still "low" in my uterus or whatever, but dude - do you have to crush my ovaries and other assorted internal organs into my pelvic bones? Seriously?!

She couldn't see him very well with the abdominal ultrasound, even though she had me switch to one side, switch to the other side, and even inverted the table so that my legs were up higher than my head was. I felt like I was on a carnival ride for a while there, but still, no good views of Mr. or Miss. so then she said that she would have to ask the doctor if he thought she should do a transvaginal ultrasound even though it's harder to get the NT measurement from a TV. (um, YES! Hello? I waited for 45 minutes to even come back here and haven't seen my baby yet!)

The doctor gave her the okay and she switched over. I have to tell you, I prefer the TV ultrasound a million times over the abdominal one. It is SO less painful, and the pictures are SO much clearer! Maybe later on when kiddo is bigger, I'll feel differently, but for now, screw it, just give me the dildocam!

She showed us the divisions in the baby's brain, and the chambers in the heart. We also got to see the spine all the way down his body, and his stomach. It was so cool to see a real baby in there, instead of the alligator blob we saw at 6w6d. We saw the baby move around and do this hiccup movement that the tech explained to us wasn't true hiccups. Apparently it's a nervous system developmental trait that all babies experience.

Here are the two pictures she printed for us:

In this first one, you can see the baby's head to the left. The big circle on the left is the brain, with the division down the middle. Directly under the brain, you can see the two eye sockets, septum and jaw. Then, to the right is the baby's torso, with the left shoulder up at the top of the screen and the right arm at the bottom.

In this second picture, you can see the baby's head to the left, with both arms and hands raised up to it. The bowling ball on the right is his Buddah belly, and the small black dot inside it is his stomach.

At any rate, after all that, she was still unable to get a good view of the NT area in order to do the measurement. The baby was 'face on' for the most part, and she needed a profile. She had me cough, move my uterus around, she poked and prodded, and Baby B just wasn't having it. Finally, after almost an hour, he decided that he had had enough, and literally gave us the cold shoulder. He turned almost completely around so all we could see was his right shoulder and the back of his head. Stinker!

So I went ahead and did the blood work portion of the test, and rescheduled the ultrasound (at Good Sam this time) for July 1st. It's literally the last day I can have this test done because you can't be farther along than 13w5d, which I will be exactly. Hopefully the baby will have grown a lot in almost two weeks. Hopefully he'll cooperate. Hopefully the super duper ultrasound machines there will be able to do what we weren't able to do previously. If not, then they just have to go off of the blood work to figure out our risk of chromosomal abnormalities, and that is not nearly as accurate.

Symptom-wise, I was doing pretty well until I hit week 12. That weekend was extremely hot, coupled with me going swimming for the first time in years, and probably being dehydrated, I was just miserable! I felt like absolute crap that whole weekend. And then, to make matters worse, my two lower-back herniated disks decided they wanted to flare up last week. I actually ended up leaving work early on Friday because I couldn't physically sit or stand any longer to accomplish any work. Over this past weekend, that has gotten a little better, but I'm still not feeling 100%. 

Comprehensively, over the first 13 weeks of this pregnancy, here are the symptoms I have experienced at one time or another:

• Fatigue, ranging from mild to oh-em-gee-I-can't-take-one-more-step! 
• Muscle weakness
• Heartburn - My throat! My throat! My throat is on fi-yer!
• Bloaty belly - still lookin' extra fat. Sweet!
• Cramps
• Headaches
• Dizziness
• Hot flashes
• Shortness of breath
• Extra pronounced greenish veins across my chest - just call me The Hulk
• Belly itchiness
• Pronounced stretch marks
• The BOOBS - bigger, tender, flaky/itchy nipples. Excellent.
• Hormonal rages and unexplained crying spells.
• A newly developing linea negra! Woot! An outward sign that I'm actually pregnant!
• Round ligament pain - increasingly bad over the past two weeks. I can't even stand up without almost doubling over in sharp pain! Ouch!

Upcoming Events:  Second NT ultrasound this Thursday. Four month appointment next Thursday. Gender scan in less than 7 weeks. And I think that's it for now.