OK, it's been quite the couple of days. Sunday I had some pain in my lower left abdomen, and it got worse as the day went on - much worse. At night it was tough to sleep because it hurt badly enough to awaken me in the middle of the night. I had been coughing a lot from the stinking cold that Calvin gave me, and Loren thought that it was possible I had a hernia. So, Monday morning I called my OB and went in. He didn't think it was a hernia because the pain was higher than he thought it should be, but he did think it possibly could be an ovarian cyst. He ordered an ultrasound, and I had that done early Monday afternoon. It showed nothing as far as the ovary (thankfully), and while they were there, they did a thorough ultrasound on the baby as well. We found out two interesting things: 1) It's a girl! (At least they're pretty sure...) and 2) She is measuring at 18 weeks 2 days even though by my reckoning (which should be pretty darn accurate because of my charting for infertility) I am 14 weeks 4 days pregnant. This is pretty weird, so I called the OB and we scheduled an appt for today to talk about it. Turns out that the ultrasound at this point in pregnancy is very accurate for dating purposes. He knows that my history and my charts are accurate, and that my expected due date should be what I think - but given the measurements of the baby, he thinks the best explanation is that I conceived a month before I thought I did and that I actually had a period while pregnant. Strange but true. Apparently it's possible that the maternal hypothalamic signals are strong enough to trigger menstruation even though the embryo is sending out signals of its own, and somehow the embryo can survive all of this and voila! I'm 4 weeks MORE pregnant than I thought.
My only concern at this point is the following: what if the ultrasound is wrong? Well, Dr. S says that we'll get 1-2 more ultrasounds and see what they say. If they all agree, we'll assume they're correct. If not, we can always have an amniocentesis done at the very end of pregnancy and they can test for lung maturity in the baby before doing the C-section. I am reassured by these measures, so on we go. Hey, I get to hold my baby 4 weeks earlier, so I'm happy!!! Plus she looks perfectly healthy and normal by all the measures on the ultrasound. I'm really thankful that all is well, even if my head is spining a bit with the news.
2 comments:
Congraulations on a baby girl and on possibly getting to hold her four weeks earlier then first thought.
There's nothing quite like being more done with a project than expected. :D
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