We are back from my ultrasound. It is a very healthy baby, measuring on target, with his or her heart beating away. 140bpm. And there was only one of them.

When we stepped into the ultrasound room Den looked at me with a very worried face and told me he was scared. I had been freaking out all day and he hadn’t. Suddenly when the time was up he was the one who looked like he might bolt from the room at any second, and I was calm and hopeful.

I slid my feet into those damn stirrups (but they were fuzzy, all the stirrups at the RE are fuzzy), and the Ultrasound tech started looking around.

I felt a moment of panic as she panned around, I didn’t see any black circles, just grey. What if there was nothing there?! And then a big round black spot slid into view, with a little whitish blob sitting at the bottom. She scanned back and forth through the embryo and pointed. “See that?” I sat up a little and sure enough, one little round part of the embryo was fading light-dark, light-dark, light-dark. The heartbeat. It didn’t look like I had pictured it… not at all like a little white light blinking. It looked… organic. You could almost see the liquid swoosh in and out over and over again. It was crazy and beautiful all at once.

The tech pointed out the yolk sac… the big blob at the top of the “baby” – which we had at first mistaken for a head – was in fact the yolk sac, sustaining the baby as the placenta burrows in. The baby was a little… blob… stretched out close to the bottom of the sac. She measured it end to end, told us it’s measuring right on track.

The funniest part, to me, was when she scanned over sideways to check my ovaries. It was freaking HUGE compared to the baby! Gigantic monster ovaries! She said sometimes they calm down by 8 weeks, sometimes it takes until 12 weeks for them to go back to their normal size. IVF kind of puts a strain on them. And definitely my left side is bigger than my right, which explains the minor twinges I’ve been getting from that side. She said to expect more as they continue to shrink up.

She printed up some photos of our little babyblob for my chart and for us to take home, and that was that. The whole ultrasound seemed to fly by. I felt like I just wanted to lay there and watch the heart beat for half an hour. Any less seemed far too short… and I’m not certain that even half an hour would have been enough!

The tech said that their wheel calculates a due date of April 6, but all the calculators online I’ve done say April 5. She said one day off isn’t a big deal either way, LOL. So I’m leaving all my tickers as April 5, for three reasons: it won’t screw up my counting (do I go back and change my previous pictures with the “new” date? it just gets confusing either way); currently my “new week” starts on a Saturday, and I like that a lot, just to take a day to celebrate and take photos; and April 5 is a nicer number. (I have weird quirks like that!) It’s not like the baby’s going to come on their due date anyways, so one day doesn’t matter.

They’ve booked me for another ultrasound on August 27, though I think they booked me with the wrong doctor (I was too far in lala land to correct them) so I may have to call tomorrow and just ask them to double check that.

She said that I can stop taking the baby aspirin (one less pill at night – woo hoo!) and the estrogen patches. I continue the progesterone until August 25, then stop those too! And I can book an appointment with my Midwife for anytime after the ultrasound on the 27th when they officially “release” me. :D

PS – Sorry Jen and others who are waiting! I took a while to write this!!