12 Weeks and Doing Well!

You can see the face.....definitely alien looking....I hope she/he grows out of that ;)

Well, after having wondered and waited for the last four weeks to see if I really would miscarry, I had my 12 week appointment. I was really kind of nervous about this appointment, mostly because the last appointment wasn't ideal and I was nervous that maybe the doctor wouldn't hear a heartbeat. Paul usually accompanies me to this appointment since it's usually when we hear the heartbeat for the first time. Well, Paul couldn't come this time because he was in Colorado.

The boys and I spent the night at Kendra & Graham's last night and Kendra watched the boys while I went in this morning. Nervous as I was, I was also excited that I'd made it to 12 weeks to begin with so I felt pretty sure I was in the clear......

Dr. Carn got out the doppler and started looking for the heartbeat...and then he kept looking...and looking....and looking.....the longer it took, the more nervous I got. After a good 5-10 of solid searching, he finally stopped. I think he could see my worry because he quickly explained that it doesn't mean it's not there, the next step would be to get an ultrasound and make sure it was still a viable pregnancy.

The nurse was able to set up an appointment for a hour later at the hospital so I called Kendra and asked her if she wouldn't mind holding on to the kids for a little while longer and then, after a quick visit to a nearby friend, I headed over to the hospital. The first thing the technician said to me after I got hooked up was, "Yep, there's a heartbeat." WHEW!! I was surprised she could tell that so quickly but I could see that there was a baby so it wasn't too hard to believe her. I never did get to hear the heartbeat but she was able to tell me how fast it was beating (156pm) and then she started taking all the standard measurements. I ended up measuring only 2 days smaller than expected, so basically, the baby was right on target!!

I felt so much better after that appointment and I've been pretty excited ever since. Paul called around 12:45 to ask how the appointment went and it was really nice to be able to know the conclusion of the ultrasound by the time he called so he wouldn't have to spend the rest of his time in Colorado worrying while he needed to focus on other things. I finally feel like I can start expecting an actual baby in August. Yay!

It's still too soon to know if it's a boy or girl but of course, we're all hoping it's a girl. The boys have already named her and started referring to her by that name. I keep trying to help them understand that it might be a boy but they've got their little hearts set on a girl so I really hope they're not wrong. And I got the earliest picture I've had of any of my babies out of the whole ordeal!