Don't worry, I'm still here. The first trimester is just well and truly kicking my butt. I'm pretty much getting up every morning and counting down the time when I can get back into bed (6.30pm every evening). I also have morning, noon and night sickness and despite being the world's biggest baby about throwing up, I'm kind of loving it in a weird way. Oh, and don't suggest ginger for goodness sake, it's everyone's answer to morning sickness and it does nothing for me except burning like hell on the way back up!
First I'll catch you up with what's been going on here because although Seven Weeks was relatively calm, Six Weeks proved to be a little dramatic.
You'll remember that I started Week Six with a spot of bleeding. Well it was all good until the Monday when I tried to return to work. Getting out the car I felt a little 'wetness' so I moseyed on to the loo to discover bright red blood and not just a little of it.
I was 6 weeks 2 days, a full week on from the massive bleed which prompted the end of my pregnancy with Olaf and Elsa. I felt panicked and yet strangely calm because somehow this felt different to what I'd felt that time. I called Mr Click while I was on the loo, told him to come back for me, wandered through to tell my Team Leader I had to go and then headed over to the midwives at the hospital. It all felt a little like deja vu but just with less crying this time.
The midwife we saw, K, was lovely. She was so calm and reassuring, even though at first blush it WAS a lot of blood. She got us booked in for a scan at the Early Pregnancy Unit the following day (the earliest they could take us as scans are only scheduled for the morning) and even called me later in the day to see how I was getting on.
Luckily the bleeding tapered off over the course of the day and by the following morning I was just getting the tiniest bit of spotting. We headed off to the mainland for the scan not really knowing what to expect.
What nobody likes to tell you is that bleeding in early pregnancy is incredibly common, particularly in IVF pregnancies because of the effects of the medication you're taking. Doesn't make it any less scary when it happens to you.
We knew there was a whole spectrum of things that could be happening from a miscarriage right through to a bleed which just happens without any real reason. We knew we should see a baby on a scan at 6 weeks 3 days but it could be too early to see a heartbeat in which case it might be a little inconclusive. It was nerve-wracking to say the least.
Surprisingly it was an abdominal ultrasound rather than an internal one. And the moment she put the scanner on my belly I could see the gestational sac. Even better, before she zoomed in I could see there was something in it. Being the obsessive IVF patient that I am, I've been googling these things.
But the far better moment came just seconds later when she zoomed in on the contents of the sac and there was the perfect flicker of a little heartbeat just merrily doing its thing. I called it before she did!
That's our Bo. He's nestled over towards the right hand side of my uterus.
And the bleeding? Well that appears to have been coming from a second gestational sac so it looks like Luke tried to get going but couldn't for whatever reason. Whereas Bo's sac was nice and round with a nice dark background, Luke's was an odd shape with white bits in it. This was labelled detritus and could have been blood in the sac.
I noticed she did take a measurement of a little long narrow bit in that sac which might have been an embryo at some point. It was slightly smaller than Bo and it didn't have a flicker of a heartbeat.
Strangely I don't feel too sad about the prospect of a vanishing twin. I'm actually glad to know that our second embryo implanted and I'm glad we know what happened to him. It also justifies that little niggle of unease that I had about putting back two embryos. What if we'd only transferred the one and that was the one we put back? Instead of seeing a heartbeat on the scan it would have just been that sad looking sac. The fact that one took and the other didn't makes me think that chromosomally something wasn't quite right and I can cope with that. I'll miss my little Luke but I know he tried.
And it told us where the bleed was most likely coming from and also that we might expect another one (thankfully not so far) as the blood would either come out or be reabsorbed. All in all, as scans go, it was pretty perfect.
And as if to prove it was all okay, Bo kicked up the morning sickness that week. We progressed from nausea to full on vomiting. Usually I spend an hour in the bathroom from about 5.30pm onwards. Sometimes he starts it around 4pm to keep me on my toes. I'm becoming very well acquainted with the bottom of the loos at work!
This week Bo will start to look decidedly baby-like.
We've got a scan scheduled this week so I'm hoping to see that little heart still doing its thing as well as some little arm and leg buds and maybe even some movement.
Speaking of arms and legs, the Ovia pregnancy app I get these pictures from has this section which shows you your baby's hand and foot size relative to what it's likely to be when they're born. Of course the hands and feet don't actually develop until around Week Eight so I've been waiting rather impatiently to see what this feature looks like.
I have not been disappointed, look at this tiny hand:
And this little dot is the actual size of a foot this week.
I actually beg to differ on this one. I have massive feet for my height, clearly I'm part Hobbit, so I suspect any child of mine will have feet twice as big as the average so as not to let the side down.
What with the tiredness and the sickness and my incredibly limited diet at the moment (oh, and the insomnia, hence the writing of this blog post at 1am, about the only time of day I can keep my eyes open), I'm definitely feeling pregnant right now. And I'm hoping to stay that way for a good while yet.
So keep everything crossed for a nice strong heartbeat this week.
