Ultrasound, 17w6d

I *love* ultrasounds. Love them, love them, love them.

This is not to say that I didn’t get nervous before my appointment. My husband could barely sleep last night. He was suddenly really anxious. I was doing OK until this morning, when I was just sitting around the house, waiting for 10:00 so we could leave for the hospital. That’s when the butterflies settled in.

It continued to be disconcerting when the woman before us at the perinatologist’s office came out of one of the exam rooms and had clearly been crying. The ultrasound techs were talking in muffled tones. It scared me, because I was again reminded that the rare bad things really do happen to real people. I hoped, yet again, that it wouldn’t be me this time. I hoped the pregnancy karma gods were satisfied with me being one of that 5% of people to lose a pregnancy after seeing the heartbeat. But I wasn’t sure.

The ultrasound itself, though, was great. Our ultrasound tech (Jackie?) was super friendly and informative, telling us what each thing was that she was measuring (femur, abdomen, different parts of the brain, kidneys, etc.). In fact, before she really started, she immediately found both twins and showed us each of their hearts beating. *whew*

Baby A is head-down and weighs approximately 7 ounces. And she’s a girl! The tech was able to discern this pretty quickly, which was great. She was moving around, moving her adorable arms and legs and spine and everything (yes, I drank the magic orange juice before I went in…). Her perfectly-formed four-chambered heart was beating an excellent 145 beats per minute. She’s on the left side of my abdomen.

Baby B is breech and weighs approximately 8 ounces, and due to position and a bout of modesty, did not give us an easy time finding the goods. But eventually we did… and he’s a boy! He kept putting his hand in the way… yes, he really is a boy. He, too, was moving around a lot, giving us a bit more trouble finding his heart and other important things. I ended up having to roll over on my left side (he’s on the right) so she could get a better shot of the heart, which was beating even faster than his sister’s (possibly 180 BPM, but it wasn’t as clear). He’s on the right side.

And, in another very important piece of information, my cervix is closed and nice and long, over 4 centimeters (the goal at this stage is at least over 3 cm). For those who don’t know (though most of you readers are pregnant ladies, so you clearly do know), one of the major risks/indicators for preterm labor is a shortening/effacing or dilating cervix. It’s still quite early, but a very good measurement for right now.

The perinatologist (a wonderful woman who also works at one of the bigger hospitals downtown) came in and talked to us for a little while after the bulk of the scanning was done. She confirmed that everything looked great, which was also nice for her, since she’d had a lot of people with bad news that morning. She gave us some general twin advice (I should start taking an iron supplement so I don’t become severely anemic while these two parasites of mine take whatever they need), and let us know we’ll be in to see her every 3-4 weeks for ultrasounds and growth checks, in addition to my regular OB appointments.

So, all in all, a great day! It was a big sigh of relief to see them both in there, doing great, wiggling around. I haven’t felt them kicking yet (though I believe one has an anterior placenta, so that’ll make it harder to feel for a while), so I don’t get daily reassurance that they’re in there.

And (…drumroll…) the winner of the poll!
While Cynthia and Kathryn both were dead-on accurate with the current combined weights, the all-around winner is:
AMBER (eviswy+1) from Babycenter!
Amber guessed boy/girl with a combined 1lb., 1oz. Only two ounces off, and the correct genders.

Thanks to everyone who voted! It was fun. Well, for me, anyways. I hope you enjoyed stopping by, and feel free to come back anytime you like.