Well, I finally made it to my first official OB appointment. I’m about nine weeks, four days today. I met with the nurse practitioner (who usually does initial OB appointments), filled out a ton of forms, and talked about a couple of tests I might have done. She said I can do the nuchal translucency ultrasound if I want, but I’m at such low risk, it’s really only if I request it. I declined the AFP/triple screen blood test, because it has a pretty high rate of false positives with twins. I will, however, get a level II ultrasound (a more detailed ultrasound) at 18 weeks, so that would likely pick up something like Down’s syndrome or a neural tube defect. I did get a ton of blood drawn, checking everything from progesterone to blood sugar to HIV to whether or not I’m a carrier of the cystic fibrosis gene. That was fun, let me tell you.
But the good part is that the exam went well. My uterus is measuring more like 12 weeks, which is to be expected with twins. She even managed to pick up one of the heartbeats on doppler! We weren’t sure we’d be able to find anything at all this early, but there (quiet but strong) was one of them. She thought she might have heard another, but couldn’t get it well enough to be sure.
Anyways, things look pretty good. She said she’d schedule me for another u/s just to ease my mind in about two weeks, but the appointment the front desk found for me was with the office I don’t like and in three weeks, so I may try to call my OB tomorrow (she isn’t in on Tuesdays) and see if I can’t swing something just a little sooner. Scheduling is tricky this time of year, because I’m coming up on my busiest couple of weeks at work, so there are a bunch of days in the next month that are just out of the question.
That’s the update for now! Each positive result does take a teeny bit of the edge off of my anxiety. I don’t feel 100% great, but I probably never will and should just get used to it. But hey, this is farther than I’ve ever made it before, so for that, I’m thankful.
