Our first appointment was one that, thankfully, Jeff was able to attend with me. I was so, so glad. I was just so nervous, as always!
On the first appointment we are always looking for just one thing: an implanted little baby. And as Dr Pohl did the ultrasound I just kept my eyes closed and held Jeff's hand. Until I heard "there it is!" from Dr Pohl and Jeff squeezed my hand and told me to look. And there it was. An implanted little baby.
Happy Tears :-)
Dr Pohl said that the age of the implanted fetus at that point was 5 weeks 3 days and he wanted to see me back the next week or so to check for a heartbeat as one was not visible on this first appointment (which he said is normal... it typically becomes detectable around 6 weeks).
Unfortunately, I cannot find this first ultrasound of the baby. I have NO clue what I did with it! :-(
We made a follow up appointment and while I was so grateful to have seen that the implantation had occurred, i was super concerned about not seeing a heartbeat so worry set in, again. Wahh.
The next appointment was more of the same... another ultrasound! Luckily, because of the school holidays, Jeff was able to come again! More nerves, more worry (All from me!)... but very soon after Dr Pohl started the ultrasound, I could see the heart! I LOVE seeing that flutter :-). He turned up the sound and let us hear the heartbeat. We were estimated at 6 weeks 1 day and the heartrate was 114. I was pretty concerned about that because I know it should be 140 plus, BUT, he said that at 6 weeks its TOTALLY normal to be in the low hundreds and that anything over 70bpm was fine. Shew!
And on my third visit, the ultrasound showed me to be 8 weeks 1 day which is exactly how far I had thought we were based on my estimated conception date! The baby's heart rate was 163 and Dr Pohl gave us an official due date of August 21!
Because of our past miscarriages and the concern of low progesterone in each case, the very day I got a positive pregnancy test I did two things: Called the dr and went in for bloodwork and then chose to go ahead and start progesterone therapy (pills). The thing about progesterone is that once you start it, you HAVE to stay on it till 12 weeks when a different hormone takes over the support of the pregnancy. So while i HATED starting it before knowing the results of the blood tests, our experience of our loss from a year prior made it no option in my mind. December 2011 when I lost our 5th pregnancy, I was so hesitant to start progesterone and waited and waited and waited till the Dr said I for sure needed to take it... and it was too late. I started miscarrying that next day. And I'll always feel responsible. So being on progesterone for 8 or so weeks, while not ideal (it makes me super, super tired) is really not the worst thing.
I got the results back a couple of days later and as it turns out, my progesterone WAS low and I did need to be on it. While it bothered me that my progesterone is low, I was glad I had started it. Dr Pohl did explain to me, though, that its not uncommon as we get older for our progesterone to naturally be lower and need supportive therapy during the beginning weeks. In other words, I'm getting old. Great ;-)
Other than that, my first 8 weeks were fairly uneventful. I struggled with some constipation early on (again, normal.. sorry for the TMI), some nausea every evening and the typical generalized feeling of being tired.
Dr Pohl said that he wanted to do one more "early" ultrasound at the 10 week mark just as a safety measure. He said that past 10 weeks the rate of miscarriage for those of us with low progesterone lowers to that of a normal/healthy pregnancy. I'm not one to turn down doctors orders and, as I mentioned before, I always like the peace of mind that I get from an ultrasound that lets me see my healthy, growing baby!
So, that was the first 4 checkups!!!
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