The Pronoun Game
6:48 p.m. - 2005-05-20
When I went to pee for the zillionth time yesterday afternoon, I found something that concerned me enough to put in an after hours call to the doctor. I wasn't bleeding, but passing a piece of tissue through my girly bits when nothing of the sort should be coming out of there for the next five months made me kind of nervous. I've also been having cramps for a couple of days, and was a little worried about the combination of events.
The doctor on call told me that he had absolutely no idea what it could be, and that I needed to call at 8:15 the next morning to make an appointment to come in. He said that it was probably nothing to be worried about, but that it's always better to err on the side of safety when it comes to pregnancy.
I didn't plan to go in to work this morning, but after spending a mostly sleepless night worrying about not having my final grades in on time I decided that it would probably be the best thing for me to do. I got there at 7 and was out by 7:30, so I basically drove an hour for no good reason at all. It made me feel better to know that things were taken care of, though.
I called the clinic at 8:15, and they told me a nurse would call me back with an appointment time. I managed to doze while I waited, and the phone rang about five minutes after nine. She listened to what had happened and told me to just come on in to the office. Alan and I were on our way ten minutes later.
They took me in the ultrasound room first. I'm always surprised by how warm the gel is when they squirt it on my stomach--for some reason I expect it to be cold. I wasn't too fond of the lady doing the ultrasound today. She wasn't rude, but didn't have the sweet personality of the two women I've had before.
The baby has really grown a LOT in the past five weeks! The spine and all the bones were clearly visible, and we got a good view of the face. It looks like a tiny little skull, but I couldn't help exclaiming about it being adorable. The little darling was in a breech position the whole time, so the technician pushed on my belly to try and get it to move around. I drank a bottle of orange juice before we got there in hopes that it would wake the baby up and show us some movement during the scan. Sure enough, those little legs were kicking like crazy, though I couldn't feel them. I actually thought I felt movement a week or so ago, but now I'm not so sure. Should be any day now, though.
I was surprised when the woman told me that the baby is weighing in at 7 ounces. Everything I've read says that at 17 weeks it should only be about 5 ounces, so I don't know if it's just a big baby or if I'm actually further along than the doctor thought. (That would actually put conception much closer to the time I've been saying all along.) I guess we'll find out for sure at the eighteen week ultrasound on June 2.
Speaking of weight, I was disappointed that I've gained five pounds so far. That's not too bad for where I'm at, I guess, but I hope that it's mostly water weight and I can lose a few by the next visit. I want to try to keep my weight gain to about twenty pounds or so (it's not vanity, I promise) and that'll only give me fifteen pounds to work with over the next five months. I haven't been eating anything totally crazy, but I'm glad that school's almost over so that I can get away from the chips and soda that are so easily accessible there.
Anyway, back to the ultrasound. When the baby finally started moving, the nurse noticed a small spot of blood in my uterus. She pointed it out to me on the screen, but said that it wasn't anything to be concerned about, because it should clear up by itself. She took measurements of the head and looked at the cord, but didn't comment about it, so I'm assuming everything is okay. Alan was about to fall on top of me the whole time from trying to get a better view of the screen--he gets so excited about ultrasounds--because he was hoping we'd be able to start calling the baby something other than "it."
After the ultrasound, I had to have an exam. My regular doctor wasn't in, and I saw some guy that I didn't like one bit. He looked at me for about three seconds (and OW, he was too rough with the speculum) announced that other than my cervix being inflamed and having a little pink discharge, things were normal. He said that those two things weren't any reason for worry, and that the tissue was probably just old blood that had made it's way down. I'm not sure that I trust that opinion, but I suppose that as long as I'm not cramping or spotting things are okay.
So thankfully we're both fine, and I have the rest of the weekend for some R&R.
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Oh, and we don't have a name for her yet, but we're totally open to suggestions.