So sorry not to update last night - I know some of you were waiting! ;) I was just toooo tired out in the end to do a proper update, and still had school to prepare for the next morning so I had to do that instead. Tonight I am feeling exhausted, and more nauseous than previously (last night too), but at least school is prepared, so I will do a quick (QUICK, lol!) entry - okay, there's no way it will be quick, but I do feel really sick and just want to go to bed, so I'll try not to waffle for ages! ;)
So I had my scan yesterday. No picture though! :( I forgot to ask for one before they finished, and they said I should ask next time! Oh well.
I was so nervous at the last minute in the waiting room! It seemed to be a bad day at the Early Pregnancy Unit that afternoon. Everyone who went in to be scanned came out looking sad, and then one lady arrived in a wheelchair and sat next to me waiting for her scan, crying quietly :( So sad. I would have loved to put my arms around her and give her a big hug, but you never know if that's okay. So I sat and prayed for her and her little one silently. A fairly robust looking lady came in cheerfully with a sweet busy little toddler on her hip, and even she came out looking upset :( So by the time I was seen, I had waited nearly an hour, and was suddenly worried that my tiny might not be okay after all.
They don't show you the screen when you have these scans. I knew to just wait and look at the ceiling, and try to not hyperventilate or anything unhelpful like that. Thankfully within about 10 seconds of starting the scan, she said, "Looking good so far!" and I breathed out - I had no idea I had been holding my breath! She didn't turn the screen to me just yet, but I looked over at her trying to read her face for the rest of the scan, now that I didn't have to be so nervous. After a few moments looking at the screen and changing the angle of the scan loads of times, she got a sort of perplexed look on her face, and still looking at the screen, said, "I might need to get a second opinion..." Which made me nervous! So I asked, "What for?" and she said, "I don't want to freak you out (!!!!) but..." and then she turned the screen to me and pointed at what she was seeing, "I can't be sure whether this is a second baby or not." I saw a precious little blobble, all magnified, so very grainy, with a lovely beating heart - I could see all the valves opening and closing furiously like little trap doors, so fast! What a lovely sight! :) And there was a yolk sac, very obvious, next to the baby. And then MORE grainy magnified stuff, sort of to one side and down a bit. When she tried to change the angle or cross section the baby with the scan, it sorted of merged, and then separated again, so it was really hard to tell what it was. At one point she could not tell if there was another heartbeat, because it seemed like two RIGHT next to each other, but it was like a reflection (and exactly the same rhythm) so like part of the difficulty of scanning on such a tiny embryo which was squished up between the yolk sac and the wall of my womb.
I did not feel surprised at all at the mention of twins, even though it does (overall) look like it's probably a single baby in there. I just would NOT be surprised at a twin pregnancy one little bit, because I feel like it's something that God has opened our minds to in the past already, as a possible plan for us at some point. Also, Neil tells me he prayed for twins if I was to become pregnant again. And Nathey told me there were two babies (girl babies), although then he seemed unsure and said one baby was Samuel, and the other baby was the girl baby in my tummy :) Anyway, I would not be surprised. Twins absolutely do NOT run in my family, anywhere, even waaaaaay back on the family tree on various sides. Nada.
The sonographer continued to scan and scan. In the end she said she would take a look at my ovaries and then come back to the baby. My ovaries look fine. I ovulated from my left ovary this time (that's the 3rd time for sure, one unknown, and two from the right, lol!). I have some fluid in my left ovary but she thinks that's just to do with the cyst that formed after ovulating.
Then she went back to the baby (I just typed "babies"!). She was pleased because she said it had moved to a different position! I did not expect that it could at 6w5d, and for sure the only muscle movement is involuntary at this stage. But then as she was trying to measure the length of the baby (just 6.2mm, soooo teeny! And spot on for dates - 6w4d-6w5d), she said it was moving around quite a bit! Amazing! Another wiggler then? Matthew was by far my wiggliest baby, very vigorous and strong in the womb waaaay earlier than I thought a baby should be (!!), so perhaps this little one is going to be similar?!
She still could not be sure of whether something else was behind the yolk sac. She said that she could measure the length of the baby, but it was right between the yolk sac and the uterine wall.
So she suggested that I come back for a re-scan in 10 days. That way, if it's twins, they will be picked up for sure at 8 weeks, and if it's not, that will be very obvious too. She didn't want me to sort of slip through the loop, get to my routine scan at 12 weeks, and for them to find twins, see that I'd had an early scan and think the sonographer was incompetant, haha! She ummed and uhhed for ages about what to write on the report, and eventually said pleadingly, "Can YOU tell them?!" hehe! So after I finished there, I went through with my report and told the lady at the desk that I needed a re-scan in 10 days because it had not been too clear to measure the baby (what she said!)! ;)
She said that she THINKS it's a single baby, but that they just need to be sure.
I know a few things about the twin possibility, that I am sure I should not dwell on, and I'm NOT worrying about it! I promise! But I should probably do the right thing and put it out of my head until I know all the same. I want to write them here so all my thoughts are down anyway.
If it's twins, they will be identical twins. There is one gestational sac, not two. If it's twins, it looks to me most likely that they will be mono-mono twins (that is mono-chorionic, mono-amniotic twins). It depends when identical twins split into two as to what their "set up" in the womb will be. They can split early (I know this stuff due to a fascination with identical twins!) - up to 3 days after fertilisation, and then be like non-identical twins, each with their own sac and placenta. If they split between 4 and 8 days, they'll have a shared placenta, but two separate amniotic sacs side by side. If they split from 9-12 days after fertilisation, they will share both a placenta AND an amniotic sac. If they split from 13-15 days after fertilisation you will have conjoined twins.
I have one yolk sac - she could definitely confirm this. One yolk sac is indicative of mono-mono twins (both within the same amniotic sac) or conjoined twins - a late split. Both these types of twins are very rare (mono-mono twins make up 1% of all twins). Mono-mono twins are a HIGH risk pregnancy. The main risk is cord entanglement - old stats used to give a 50% chance of survival for both twins, but I think it's up to 80% or more now, but only with aggressive monitoring of the babies - you have to be admitted to hospital from 24 weeks or thereabouts for monitoring, until the babies are born, because at any time they might need to be delivered. I can't FATHOM that! All mono-mono twins are delivered by C-section no later than 34 weeks. Again, can't fathom. Scary prospect, if it is the case! More scary is the conjoined twins prospect, but HONESTLY I am not dwelling on either scenario. At first, even while I was looking at the image on the screen, I had a bit of a worry about conjoined twins, because what WAS that extra grainy blobbiness - not really another baby... and there was only one heartbeat.
Anyway, for the above reasons, I am actively praying for ONE healthy baby, because I think if there were two in some form, given the single yolk sac and no visible membrane within the gestational sac (which could separate twins), it would be a difficult and risky road. If we are blessed with twins, OH the blessing, the joy at having two!! But for the sake of my little boys I would hope that we are looking at one baby right now. In any other situation I would be SO excited about twins! :) And I still sort of AM, weirdly, even having said all of that! But I am just not going to think about it too much between now and the next scan, and see what happens then.
I'm feeling SICK. Bleurgh! It has been a really gradual increase in severity, for which I am REALLY grateful! It has made the transition to morning sickness much easier than my other pregnancies. It isn't as bad yet as it has been with the others, still. But not too far off in the evenings now. The evenings, as always, are my worst time, that and late afternoon. I'm blessed this time to have the whole morning free, and some days until an hour or two after lunch, before I start to feel queasy, which progresses to nauseous over an hour-ish, and then gets worse gradually over the remaining hours of the day. For the last 3 days, no foods that I eat are making me feel less sick any more, but I am doing my best to keep eating, and especially PROTEIN, when I feel sick. Sometimes eating makes me feel a little better for like 5 minutes, and then it creeps back again. One thing for sure is that if I DON'T eat, or if I delay eating by much time when it's a meal time or I'm hungry (and I am VERY hungry, quite frequently now!), I feel MUCH worse pretty quickly. So I eat. And water is going okay so far, which is a relief. I always struggle to get any fluids into me at this stage because I can't tolerate water at all, or any other fluids really. Foods aren't tasting bitter (yet?), which I'm grateful for too.
I am still a bit crampy and generally uncomfortable here and there, low in my pelvis. It's nothing to worry about though, I think. I am getting hot flushes more this past week, not related to the GORGEOUS hot weather we've been having (which is sadly now finished!).
I can't think what else to write, although I'm sure there's more, and I'm not entirely sure if I've missed something about my experience at the scan.... but it's late and Samuel is waking, and I'm soooooo tired. Have just eaten cottage cheese with some chopped up cucumber and tomatoes for the first time this pregnancy, and it was NICE to eat that, so maybe it's a boy? Haha! ;)
Thanks for being so supportive and excited for me on this pregnancy journey! :) I'll update again soon!
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