NIAW

I'm writing this post as part of Project IF, the effort by RESOLVE and Mel of Stirrup Queens to highlight the many and far-reaching consequences of infertility as part of National Infertility Awareness Week. Mel has asked that participants end their posts "with a new, positive 'what if' — a best-case scenario for you personally, what you hope to see happen either for yourself or for someone else."


This is kind of a tough one for me. Obviously the "best case scenario" would be not to be infertile in the first place. But beyond that, as far as the care I've received, etc., I feel like I've had the best case scenario. I work in a job that has allowed me to very quickly figure out what the problem was/is and I was free to do the research to decide for myself how I wanted to deal with it. I didn't have to wait for anyone else or try to convince anyone of anything. It still took forever (or it felt like it...), but I don't think anything could have been done any differently to change that. Furthermore, with the exception of a few tests and some of the medications, we had to pay very little out of pocket. Considering how ridiculously expensive infertility treatment can be and very few insurance companies cover it, I realize we were very lucky. So I guess I wish others could have what I had: the ability to be involved in directing their own plans of care and the means to access the care they need.

13wks- The Shrimp

This week's update:

How your baby's growing:
Fingerprints have formed on your baby's tiny fingertips
Her veins and organs are clearly visible through her still-thin skin
Her body is starting to catch up with her head — which makes up just a third of her body size now
If you're having a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries
Your baby is almost 3 inches long (the size of a medium shrimp) and weighs nearly an ounce

First trimester screening- continued

Just got the call from the perinatologist, the blood work they did on Monday was very good. There's a 1 in 8,888 chance the baby has Down Syndrome and a less than 1 in 10,000 chance the baby has Trisomy 13 or 18. So yay.

Belly Shot 12wks 2days

Really there's nothing there yet, so this is more of a "before" picture. I'm going to try to take one every few weeks for now and then weekly later on. Uggghhh, I hate taking pictures though, so we'll see how that goes...

NT sono

The NT, or nuchal translucency sono was yesterday. They call it that because they're measuring the back of the baby's neck. If it measures greater than 2mm, there's an increased risk for Down Syndrome. It measured 0.91, so very good. They also did some blood work which will check different hormone levels and things like that, again looking to see if there's an increased risk for chromosomal defects. I should get those results in the next week or so.

The sono pictures came out great. The sono machine at the Perinatologist's office is a lot nicer than ours and it shows. Also, she's a lot better sonographer than me. I think the pictures are pretty self-explanatory. We have a DVD as well with clips from the sono, but we haven't figured out if we can put those up here or not. We'll post them later if we can.

12wks- The Lime

So 12wks is kind of an important milestone. Some people consider it the end of the first trimester, although I think that's kind of cheating. However, risk wise, things are more secure at this point. Which means I can relax a smidge.


The update for this week:

The most dramatic development this week: reflexes. Your baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won't be able to feel it.
His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder.
Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in your baby's brain, synapses are forming furiously. His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.

11wks 5days

I decided I wasn't going to self-sono anymore, but then I did anyway. What can I say? It's just too tempting with a sono machine always at my disposal.
Last week the sonographer told me I might have better luck getting pictures when I was doing it myself if I sono-ed standing up. So I tried it yesterday and it worked great. However, I forgot to zoom in, so the pics are kind of small. The first one is looking straight on and the second one is a profile.
It was weird though, because while I was looking the baby didn't move. I could see the heart beating, so I wasn't freaking out too much, but no movement. I tried pushing on it, looking from different angles, but still no movement that I could see. So I laid down to see if it would make a difference and the second I put the probe on my stomach, I see the baby doing cartwheels all over the place. I watched for a few minutes just to make sure, but s/he was super active. Obviously, I felt much better. I don't know if I just couldn't see the movement when I was looking from the standing up view, or if s/he was taking a nap or what.

11wks- The Fig

Update for this week:

Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about the size of a fig, is now almost fully formed. Her hands will soon open and close into fists, tiny tooth buds are beginning to appear under her gums, and some of her bones are beginning to harden.
She’s already busy kicking and stretching, and her tiny movements are so effortless they look like water ballet. These movements will become more frequent as her body grows and becomes more developed and functional. You won’t feel your baby’s acrobatics for another month or two — nor will you notice the hiccupping that may be happening now that her diaphragm is forming.

Our blob turned into a baby!

Yesterday I was sonoing myself (again) and I noticed in addition to the usual gray blob I could see all these little things floating around in the gestational sac. It took me a few minutes, but I finally realized those "things" were arms and legs and the baby was moving like crazy! It was a pretty amazing moment.

Once again, I tried to get pictures, but trying to hold the probe on my stomach with my right hand and reaching across with my left to the sono machine doesn't really work very well. I whined to the sonographer about it, so she took some pics for me.

Jeff scanned them in kind of small so they're a little hard to see. The pics are all profiles. The head is on the left, it's about the same size as the rest of the body right now. Where it bends in the middle and curls up a little, that's the body. The arms and legs are facing up, you can faintly see them. In the middle picture you can actually see the baby's nose in profile.

Double Digits! 10wks

I don't have much new to report. I'm feeling a lot better these days. Still some occassional nausea and pretty tired, but not too bad.

I took a peek with the sono on Monday and saw a slightly larger gray blob moving around a lot. I'm a horrible sonographer though, and it's pretty hard to sono yourself, so no pics. Our next official sono will be at 12wks and we should get some good pictures then.

Here are the stats for this week:


From this week until birth, the developing organism is called a fetus.
The fetus is now the size of a kumquat. A little more than 1″ long.
The neck is beginning to take shape.
The body muscles are almost developed. Baby has begun movement.
While still too small for you to feel, your little one is wriggling and shifting.
The jaws are in place. The mouth cavity and the nose are joined.
The ears and nose can now be seen clearly.
Fingerprints are already evident in the skin.
Nipples and hair follicles begin to form.