Heartbeat!

I've been so lucky during this pregnancy so far. I had one bout of rough sickness a week and a half ago, waking up at 2AM to seasick-like nausea that went on until I finally fell back asleep an hour later, and otherwise have just had passing periods of queasiness or sometimes just a "bleh" feeling. There are certain foods that I know I definitely do NOT want because I will feel a little sick thinking about it (tonight we had ground beef thawed to cook and I just couldn't), but that changes day to day. My breasts continue to be extremely sore and tender, and they developed a heaviness seemingly overnight about a week and a half ago. I'm a little more sensitive and emotional; things affect me that always would have, but my emotions are closer to the surface, harder to control, and take longer to recover from. I feel more tired than usual, but only had a few days where I just felt so exhausted I could barely do much. I feel like all of this is supposed to be much worse than it is!

Today was our appointment for the clinic to detect a heartbeat and discharge me to my OB as a "live pregnancy." It was huge for us because the chances of miscarriage go down to 2% after the heartbeat is detected, so I figured it would bring us some relief. My BabyCenter app told me at six and a half weeks (I'm seven and a half now) that the heart was now beating, and it just freaked me out! Because pregnancy is tracked from the first day of your last period, this means the heart is beating only FOUR and a half weeks after conception. How in that time does it go from ONE cell to something with a beating heart?? I'm just so amazed.

I went to empty my bladder before the sonogram as instructed, and saw bright red blood on my pad (which I have to wear because of the mess created by my progesterone suppositories). My heart just sank. I've had minor spotting, very faint pink or brown a couple of times a week, but nothing bright red since the last incident. I hated to tell my anxious wife but I had to. I told her I was just glad it happened immediately prior to the visit so that we could ask the doctor about it, instead of calling frantically later that night. The doctor didn't say much because, unlike the nurses, she won't just say something to provide comfort. She's very factual. So she just said, "well let's look," and commenced the sonogram. Immediately the gestational sac was visible, with two blobs inside, and she said that everything looked good. She explained that the upper blob was the yolk which would become the placenta, and that the bottom was our baby. Then she pointed to the rapid thumping right in the center and said, "there it is, the heart." I immediately started crying. She moved past it so quickly to check everything else out, and I wanted to ask her to find the heartbeat again and let us just watch for a while! Or record it with our phone to watch repeatedly later! But my inhibitions held me back and I just let myself feel happy that we had seen it and that we knew everything was okay.

The doctor said that bleeding is not uncommon in early pregnancy, and that since everything looks good, I shouldn't be alarmed unless it steadily increases, there are clots, or it's accompanied by cramping. And then she said, "If that's the case and you're miscarrying, there's nothing that could be done, but you should call your doctor just so they can help figure out what's going on." I appreciate her honesty! She told me that they will not officially discharge me until my OB appointment next week so that I still have someone to call or even see if anything happens between now and then.

She gave us a picture of our little bug and then the front desk staff congratulated me with big smiles as they collected my files for me to give to my OB.

Once in a while I have a moment of panic that something I can't even see is invading me and just growing and doing its own thing. It's so wild!!