S/he's Got Legs . . .

First, and foremost: Everything is fine.

Peeper is great.

In fact, Peeper is an inch-long package of embryonic (soon-to-be-fetal) perfection, with arms and legs and (if the rumors are to believed) a tongue and a nose - and a butthole (like we didn't already have enough of those in the world!)

And here's the proof:

Now that we've established that, I'll explain that we had another ultrasound this morning, because the little shit darling gave us a bit of a scare earlier in the week.

We hadn't mentioned this to anyone, nor had I blogged about it, because we were 99.99999999% sure that everything was fine, so we saw no need in getting people worried for nothing.

Now that we know that for sure that all is well, I'll go back and tell the whole story.

On Tuesday, I'd taken the day off work to engage in some electorally-related activities that were going on in these parts. I'd planned to be out and about by 7 am, but didn't manage to actually drag my ass out of bed til around 8 am, so I decided I'd make phone calls for a while, then head out around lunch-ish.

About 10:30 am, I took a break from my calls, and went to the bathroom, where I discovered that I was spotting, just the tiniest little bit, but certainly enough to freak me out.

(As you might imagine, at nine weeks pregnant, the amount of spotting required to cause freaking out is pretty fucking minimal.)

Now, I knew, intellectually, that spotting in early pregnancy is quite normal, and nothing to be overly concerned about, provided that it's not heavy or bright red or accompanied by significant cramping, but still. Yeah. Pretty freaked out.

I immediately made calls to both my fertility clinic and my regular OB. By the time I was done leaving voicemails for them, Shrike had consulted Dr. Google, and was quizzing me about cramps and color and amount, and telling me exactly what I said above.

By that point, of course, I had already decided that my activities for the day would not involve standing around outside for hours at a time, talking to strangers.

While I waited for nurses to call me back, I went to lie down, because it seemed like the thing to do.

At this point in the story, I would be remiss if I did not describe just how wonderful Shrike was during this whole episode. I keep telling her this, and she keeps telling me that I'm being silly, but I really mean it.

She handled it just perfectly. She was appropriately concerned, yet very reassuring. She told me that everything would be fine (and mostly convinced me) without ever making me feel like I was overreacting.

When I retreated to the bed, Shrike joined me and snugged me, and petted me, and let me freak out and cry for a bit. Then we both fell asleep.

Because that seemed like the thing to do.

The first call back was from the nurse at my regular OB's office who told me what I already knew (see above) and said that everything should be just fine, but to call back if anything changed.

When I'd not yet heard back from Nurse E at the fertility clinic, I called them again, and this time told the receptionist what was going on (the first time, I just asked for Nurse E's voicemail).

Because Nurse E is technically no longer our nurse, since we moved to IVF, she made me talk to another nurse, part of Nurse D's donor team (Nurse D was not in, as she only works Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Must be nice.).

Note: I really like Nurse D too, but "she's not my real nurse." And, it's kind of a pain in the ass that she's only there every other day. When we were in the middle of the IVF process, it made sense to deal with the nurses who specifically work with donor-egg IVF patients but, at this point, Nurse E knows the answers to my questions just as well as they do, so if I have my choice, I'd rather deal directly with her.

Anyway, that nurse told me the same thing, again, but also that, "if it were me, I'd want to come in for another ultrasound in a few days, just for my peace of mind."

Bingo! That's the answer I was looking for!

Let's see, ultrasound three days from now - or three weeks from now? What ever shall I do?

"Well, if you think I should. Can you transfer me to the scheduler right now?"

I was already feeling much better about everything by that point (from what the nurses had said, and the fact that nothing was changing spotting-wise; it wasn't getting heavier or any different), when Nurse E called to reassure me some more.

She agreed that the ultrasound was a dandy idea, and also assured me that something terrifying happens to every pregnant woman at some point along the way (for her, it was a fall down a flight of stairs!) and told me not to hesitate to call back if I needed to.

The spotting continued to be very, very, very light through Tuesday and Wednesday and had pretty much stopped by yesterday.

I was feeling pretty confident about things at that point, but was of course, still pretty nervous by the time the ultrasound rolled around this morning.

Of course, as soon as the dildo-cam was in position (when do I get to switch to abdominal ultrasounds?) we saw Peeper right away, including his/her little heart beating just as it should be - and a hint of some stubby little legs!

S/he is 24.7 mm long (just shy of an inch), which corresponds to 9 weeks 1 day, with a heart rate of 182 beats per minute (which is, evidently, just right).

There was no sign of any bleeding going on inside my uterus, or anything else to cause any concern.

Dr E (like the nurses) said that there are any number of inconsequential things that can cause a little bit of bleeding during pregnancy, and that, while it's very scary at the time, it's usually nothing to worry about.

She did recommend that I "take it easy" with no heavy lifting or strenuous physical activity for a few days, but other than that, everything is just fine.

So, the upshot is that we got a bonus look at Peeper, which I was happy to have, spotting or not.

My next appointment will be on May 8 with Dr B, my regular OB and then I have another appointment on May 14 with the perinatologist, for the nuchal translucency ultrasound.

I'll try to resist coming up with any other excuses for additional ultrasounds between now and then.