Perfect

Well, today's scan was just about perfect. Our RE clearly didn't have anywhere pressing to be, so we got the full treatment. Heartbeat: nice and fast. Length: measuring 8 weeks 5 days, or 2.1 cm. Yolk sac: still appropriately sized. Arm buds: present and waving. Umbilical cord: nicely visualized. The embryo twitched and wiggled about. We got a bunch of different views.

H took a very deep breath and visibly relaxed. Our RE got H to talk a little about his nervousness and H said he was still feeling especially anxious since a friend of ours recently had a miscarriage at 9 weeks, after seeing a good heartbeat. Our RE calmed H down considerably by telling him that in his experience, you usually have some sign if that's going to happen in a pregnancy as extensively ultrasounded as ours has been. Either the yolk sac is a little too big, or the heart rate is in the normal range but at the low end, or the gestational sac has an odd shape... something is just a tiny bit off. He said with us, everything has been spot on once we got the dates sorted out. He feels very confident that we will safely emerge from the first trimester.

(I know; knocking wood, throwing salt over my shoulder, etc.)

So, our worries have officially been transferred from another first trimester miscarriage, to another second trimester preterm labor fiasco. But that won't be a concern until the baby gets big enough to start putting some pressure on my cervix. Probably 18 or 20 weeks-ish. So, for now, we are starting to unwind a bit. I need to call my OB and get on their schedule. Next Thursday should be our last visit to the RE's office. I can't believe it.

I can also quit the Metformin, cold turkey. I'm frightened of gestational diabetes, but not so much that I'm not grateful to jettison those three pills a day. Progesterone continues for another week and a half or so. And my thyroid still needs to be monitored. The RE office checked it in January-- I had a TSH of 1.2 or something similar. Then they rechecked it after I got my first positive beta for this pregnancy, in May, and it had crept upwards into I believe the low threes. Should have written those numbers down. Anyway, still in the normal range, but climbing. He said to make sure my OB rechecks it fairly early in the second trimester. He'd rather have my TSH at the low end of the normal range because he says it's healthier for the baby. I need to read up on this a bit.

Anyway, it was really great. I have about seventy nine million things I ought to be doing while D takes her nap, so I'd best be off. Time to clean house.