As promised...a look at our bean!

We finally scanned our u/s pic and wanted to share it with you! Our little nugget of love is the tiny gray blob between the 2 vertical lines. :)



Isn't she/he darling? Ok, maybe it's too tiny to tell yet, but some of our friends swear they see gender parts!

I'm still feeling pretty good. Bleeding off and on, spotting off and on, but I'm trying really hard to stay calm despite that. I worry more when I'm bleeding, so I hope that this is a short lived episode and that it resolves soon! I'm still super tired, going to bed early, taking naps...I had a touch of nausea today, but really nothing to complain about! I'm just so amazed that this is happening.

Thanks for all your positive thoughts and encouragements. It helps to know we have so many wonderful family and friends rooting for us!

Love,
Julie

More bleeding....another ultrasound

Warning--TMI for those w/aversions to AF business...

So after that initial bleeding on Sunday, it resolved fairly quickly and turned into spotting...Tuesday am I had more bleeding, but I wasn't too worried b/c it was about the same as Sunday and stopped pretty quickly too. Spotting continued....Well today, I woke up and had more bleeding. Again, not too worried, seemed like the same deal. So I went to work, but the bleeding continued....it wasn't heavy flow, not even medium, but definitely more than spotting. I finally called the clinic and they wanted me to come in. I left work early, went home and put my feet up and waited for Todd to come pick me up. After I got home, the bleeding stopped and transitioned back to spotting.

Fortunately, our ultrasound looked great! Our little bean had grown a lot since Sunday, when he/she was too small to measure! Today it is 0.66cm long--which measures 1 day ahead (6w4d, and I'm currently 6w3d) and had a beautiful heartbeat of 116! They could still see the pool of blood, which may or may not have gotten a tad bigger since Sunday. They think it should resolve itself as the pregnancy continues and the babe gets bigger. I asked about the bleeding, and the Nurse Practitioner said that if the bleeding stays the same, that's fine...if it changes to a larger amount, or with cramps, etc, then call again. Assuming everything stays stable for now, we'll return for an u/s in another 10 days to make sure our bean is growing as it should.

Thanks for all your positive thought and support. I'm feeling better today and hope that this bumpy beginning is nothing more than a bumpy beginning (and will lead to a nice big bumpy me!--ok, too corny, I know).

Love,
Julie

BTW, I'll see if Todd will help me post a pic of our u/s to share with you!

Early Ultrasound! (after a bit of a scare...)

Hi there,

Well I unexpectedly had my first pregnancy ultrasound yesterday! I had woken up early, ready to go to work, but had a fair amount of bright red bleeding. It really scared me. I know that some women have bleeding during their pregnancies, but it is really hard to stay rational when you see that. I called in sick to work and anxiously awaited for my clinic to open up. I finally was able to get a hold of my clinic, and got an appt for 10am. Todd's skiing in Denver this weekend, so one of my dear friends drove me to the clinic. By 10, the bleeding has mostly stopped...I was just spotting a bit.

Fortunately, the ultrasound looked great. We could see the gestational sac, the yolk sac, and this tiny, tiny little gray blob that is our baby. I turned 6 weeks today, so it was a bit tinier than they prefer to be able to measure and count the heart beat...But we could definitely see this little flicker of gray that was the heart! Phew! And it was just one, not two! It's too bad Todd wasn't able to be there for this u/s, but it won't be long until he gets to see one.

What a relief that was to see! They did see a small pool of blood in the bottom part of my uterus, so they expect me to have a bit more bleeding..but everything should be fine. I'm supposed to stay off my feet for a few days, just to be cautious. (How unfair that Todd's out of town and unable to wait on me?!--just kidding--I know it's killing him not to be here now!) My lovely mom came over last night to help out and keep me some company. I love my mom!

We'll be going in for another u/s on Friday to get a better look at the heart, after the little guy has some time to get a tad bigger.

Thanks for your positive thoughts. Turns out I really needed them!

Here's hoping for an uneventful week,
Love,
Julie

4 more days until the U/S!

The suspense is really getting to me! I'm starting to feel a bit anxious and wish that Wednesday would just hurry up already! Every little cramp, twinge, etc make me worry about our little bean(s)...I wish that I could just stay calm and feel certain that everything will be fine, but it's much harder than I thought!

Physically I'm still feeling pretty good. Tired, yes. Nauseated/vomiting, no. Todd said that I've become a furnace at night, emitting more heat than I ever have before. :) (He thought that I had a hot water bottle next to me earlier this week--and it was just my own body heat!) That can be typical of pregnancy, so I take it as a good sign.

Four more days, 4 more sleeps, and we'll have more concrete confirmation that everything is going well. Please continue to send your positive thoughts that this pregnancy is, and stays healthy!

Thanks,
Love,
Julie

Scheduled U/S

Just a quick note to let you know our 6 week u/s will be on Wed the 23rd at 1pm (pst). Hopefully we'll see a heartbeat or two!

I'll be sure to post an update after our appointment.

Thanks for checking in on us! We appreciate your support and discretion!

Love,
Julie

Beta #3

More good news! Our 3rd beta was 769, which more than doubled from the previous 326! Everything looks really good right now, and we'll be going in for a 6 week ultrasound to check for a heartbeat(s). I haven't scheduled it yet, but it will probably be on the 22nd or 23rd.

I'm feeling pretty good--very tired, but not much nausea. My mom never had morning sickness and I'm hoping to follow in her footsteps!

Thanks for checking in on us. We'll let you know when we're making our official pg announcement...until then, please continue to keep this quiet!

Thanks!

Love,
Julie & Todd

Beta #2

I had my 2nd beta today. The Beta HCG is where they measure the amount of HCG in your blood. As a pregnancy progreses, the hcg increases...and right now they want to see my hcg double every 2 days.

Today my hcg was 326! My RE's office was very pleased with that number, and I'll have it re-checked on Friday to make sure it continues to double.

Here's this cool little graphic showing my values so far:






I asked if the hcg values correlate at all with a twin pregnancy, but they said not necessarily. The numbers really vary from pregnancy to pregnancy...So we'll see! We should find out at our 6 week u/s.

So, again, thanks for your support. It's still very early, but I'm glad to be able to share this with you. Please continue to keep this news within our little inner circle of blog readers.

Thanks,
Love,
Julie