First ultrasound

Because my doctor didn't know how to date me since I didn't ovulate on CD14 like everyone else, she had me come in for a dating scan on November 21st. At that point, I knew I was 5w6d because I knew when I ovulated (nice thing about charting is you generally know stuff like this), but I figured it'd be nice to see a sack with something in it. I was seriously hoping to see something in it. I didn't know it was a fear until I got in there, and I all of a sudden thought, "what if there's nothing there?".

But that was short-lived. The tech first tried an external ultrasound, but she warned me that since I was so early, she might not get anything. But she did zoom right in on that little black hole that represented the sack. She zoomed in a little more, and hey, there's the baby inside! She paused for a second, and what do I see? The heart beating. OMG. This is happening for real. I was so indescribably happy to see that little flicker, I don't even have words. I wasn't even expecting to see it this early.

And since the tech needed to measure the baby to date me and couldn't get a clear enough picture on the external, she had me undress from the middle down so she could do a fun vaginal ultrasound. I've had those before, so I was not fazed. She took a gander at my ovaries first so she could measure them & whatever else an ultrasound tech does. And it turns out I ovulated out of my left ovary. There was a big black hole right in the middle of it, which I was told was the corpus luteum... the remnant of the hole the egg made when it came out, and the thing that is helping keep my baby alive until the placenta takes over (it produces progesterone). It's such a beautiful black hole.

Then she zoomed in on the baby. Heart still beating, but not a whole lot clearer. She measured the heartbeat and reported that it was 112 BPM, which is good for how far along I was since it had probably only started beating a few days before. Then she measured the baby, and the determination was that I was 5w6d, just like I thought. But now the doctor knows, and I can tell myself that I am awesome, so that's good. :)






















Doesn't the yolk sac kinda look like an alien head and that it already has arms and is waving? Cute!

I'm just soooo happy that I got to see the heartbeat though. It was very reassuring, because once you see a heartbeat, the chance of miscarriage drops to about 5-10%. I realize that I'm not out of the woods by far though, so I'm still just living on hope that everything will go just swimmingly.