39 week appointment: Echoes of September Past

I heard it too. The irregular heartbeat. buh-buh-buh-----buh-buh-buh---- I know it's not supposed to skip like that. She had me hop off the table and get dressed.

"We have three pieces of news. None great. All unrelated. One: You're retaining a lot of fluid. Two: While the baby's head is on your cervix, it's very high. This makes a c-section highly likely, though it makes a prolapsed cord unlikely. Three: The heartbeat is irregular."

She kept talking. I waited until she was done. I tried not to cry. But it didn't work. I cried anyway. I reminded her that those same words had been spoken to us last year, at a different stage with a different pregnancy, and it didn't end well. She said it's usually nothing -- 90% of the time it's nothing, never heard again. She had me get back on the table. We heard it again. She got a cool, damp paper towel to wipe my face and made an appointment for an immediate ultrasound. I called P. Off we went.

The ultrasound showed very chubby cheeks, a very active baby, and "occasional to frequent arrhythmia." The baby was too big and too squished for them to get a good view of the heart. But they saw nothing to cause concern. 99% of the time they see this, it's nothing and goes away before birth or shortly after. So now we wait. No more work. Call if there's any change in movement, even if it seems insignificant. NST tomorrow. Waiting. September is for waiting.

Monday's Ultrasound

So, we had our Level II ultrasound Monday. Everything looked good, according to the radiologist and the tech. (Apologies to anyone who was worried when I didn't post right away -- been working awful hours this week.) We saw the little hands and feet, the bladder, the stomach, all four chambers of the heart, the blood flowing in and out of the umbilical cord, and the spine and ribs. And they took a lot of measurements of the lengths of the bones in the arms and legs and the size of the skull. The radiologist said we'd get more info when we met with our regular doctor, but we don't have our next appointment for 2 weeks, and that appointment is with the midwife rather than the OB. I assume we'll still cover the details then, since Memorial Day (which is when our next doc appt is) seems awfully far away.

The baby is much higher up than I expected -- at or around my belly-button already, which I suppose explains why said body part is getting shallower and shallower (I don't want to lose my innie!). Crazy. And baby was very wiggly -- the doctor had some trouble getting some shots/measurements. We didn't get to see him/her in 3D, as s/he was covering his/her face with his/her small hands and arms most of the time, but we got some pictures in 2D. Sadly, most are a little fuzzy-looking (and have the aforementioned hands in front of/arms across face problem), and my computer crapped out this morning while finishing the scan and upload, so I've only got the worst of the lot ready for sharing. I'll post more later.



Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious from that horrific sentence filled with him/hers, we're waiting until September to find out the sex.