I finally made it to the level 2 ultrasound which feels like it’s been ages, but it’s been two months since the disastrous genetic screening fiasco at 13 weeks. Truly, I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it all the way until 20 weeks to not only find out the sex of the baby but if there was even a healthy baby to begin with.
Symptom-wise, I’m still feeling good when it comes to the nausea and gagging, but this week I did do a dry heave in the bathroom after weeks of going without. That was fun. But the pelvic pain continues to get worse. I said in the week 20 post that I really needed to be seen by a chiropractor. Earlier this week I sat down and called two places nearby. I ended up making an appointment for next week with a Webster-certified chiropractor at a place that is out of network (OON) for insurance.
The other place does technically take Medica, but when they called Medica, they were told they were out of network. I don’t believe it because Medica’s search feature is awful and even my own primary doctor is listed as OON which, good lord. So I basically don’t trust a word my insurance says when it comes to who is in network because the people who are supposed to know this stuff use the same shitty search feature and it always comes up OON. Insurance is a hoot, isn’t it?
So anyway, I’m going to see how the appointment goes next week with the other place and try and get a feel for how much I could be paying out of pocket with them. I can always switch to the place that apparently covers me, but history has told me while Medica may initially cover chiropractic care, I’m almost guaranteed to get cut off from them. Pregnancy is apparently an unnecessary reason for care, according to my insurance. Assholes.
I’m hoping I can feel better soon, even if I’m paying out of pocket. I know it’s temporary and I know it really helped last time with my pregnancy with Emelia.
The days leading up to the ultrasound have been long, full of worry and dread there’s something wrong with the baby. I know I had these same feelings with my IVF pregnancies, but this time there’s a different reason. With those pregnancies, I had a high-quality egg. With this one, I was gambling with either one of my many many shitty eggs or the possibility of a good one hiding out in my ovaries. Most miscarriages happen due to chromosomal abnormalities, and I assumed if this egg fertilized and made it this far, it was *probably* good, but you never know.
So I was terrified, checking the days off the calendar, and getting closer to the appointment.
The day before we had a massive snowstorm, the second in the last two months. The girls had off school and I was wondering about another snow day on Ultrasound Day, but hadn’t heard anything. Our neighbor stopped by that evening and said her husband was off the next day due to snow because he worked for the Minneapolis school district.
We still hadn’t heard anything about the girls’ school, but then I started panicking that they would have another snow day and the roads would be too bad for traveling and I couldn’t reschedule this thing, because odds are, I wouldn’t get an appointment again for weeks. So I frantically texted my mom and asked if she would be on standby just in case and we’d bring the girls over if they were off school and we’d drive to the appointment, two hours in crappy traffic if necessary.
But luckily, the girls had school, and while it took us an hour to drive the usual 30 minutes to the clinic, we made it in time. One hurdle down.
The level 2 ultrasound
We were called back by two women and turns out, one of them was the genetic counselor I had worked with in my first trimester for all my (failed) testing. She brought us to a room and I thought she was just saying hi and nice to meet you in person, but then she went on for 10 to 15 minutes about all the horrible things they could find on the ultrasound and all the different percentages of risk for each thing. She kept going back to my age and my risk of Down syndrome. It felt like, “You will have a baby with genetic anomalies because you’re old and so you have to have this ultrasound to prove otherwise.” It was…not fun. A part of me wondered if they were going to sit in the ultrasound with us and point out any markers that showed up. That would be a special kind of hell.
Then she told me even if everything looked normal, it doesn’t necessarily mean there was nothing still wrong, and if I chose to, I could do the quad screen as well afterward because that would be more accurate.
She’s really nice and all, but at that moment I wanted to tell her to fuck off and leave me alone unless there was actually something to be concerned about. After they left, I was to use the bathroom, and told Chris, “I could have done without that little meeting right before the scan because now I’m not normal worried, I’m terrified-worried something is wrong.”
This is probably not the way to talk to pregnant people, to act as if there’s already something to be concerned about. There’s such a thing as too much information and I crossed that bridge a while ago. After all, I’ve been living for the last two months that either the genetic screening at 12 weeks didn’t work, or there was a trisomy or triploidy with the baby. Now that we were here, I just wanted to walk in there with the assumption that I was like 95% of people – and everything was perfectly normal.
And guess what? It was.
Everything was perfect. The baby’s heart rate was 169 and was measuring 1 lb 6 oz and in the 98th percentile. Olivia, according to her anatomy scan results had a heart rate of 153 and was 15 oz and in the 55th percentile at 21 weeks. Emelia got her scan at 19 weeks, so she’s a little harder to compare, but was 11 oz and in the 65th percentile and her heart rate was 152. So…we’ve got a nice-sized baby in there. Long legs, long arms. Basically, it’s a Kerslake baby, but hey. I tend to give birth prematurely, and bigger babies always seem to do better, so maybe I’ll have that on my side.
I drank some orange juice on the way to the appointment and Pokemon was happily awake and yawning and swallowing and kicking and sucking their thumb. Oh, it was adorable and the scan went faster than I remembered. But everything was great. Our sonographer was amazing and kept pointing out what she was looking for and how it all was normal. Once or twice she got quiet for three seconds and my stomach dropped and then she’d happily chirp, “There, sweet thing, you’re going to cooperate with me now? Okay, the kidneys look normal!” and I’d tell myself to calm the fuck down and stop being crazy. We only had to close our eyes for a minute as she checked between Pokemon’s legs for the sex and then I asked her if it seemed perfectly clear, and she said yes.
The MFM doctor came in after and reiterated everything looked great. He told me my risk for preeclampsia would be decreased if I increased my daily baby aspirin from 1 tablet to two.
Here are some photos! Note: World’s worst US photos. I had the same experience with Emelia at the high-risk OB as well. It must be a thing to have really grainy images that a high-risk OB is just a rockstar at interpreting compared to a regular OB because none of these photos would ever make it to a cute photo frame. Seriously, they’re terrible.
Afterward, we left without bothering to tell anyone we were declining further genetic screening. I’m closing that chapter of Stressful Pregnancy Things. And now this post is getting long, but I’m now going to tell you about FINDING OUT WHO IS IN MY UTERUS.
The great sex reveal
I’ve always hated gender reveal parties and am always that person who corrects someone saying, sex isn’t gender. We’re finding out the sex, not the gender, and I still haven’t had one, but I hold firm that I would throw a killer sex reveal party.
During the last two pregnancies, Chris was the one that took the envelope to the clothing store, opened it on his own to find out, and then picked out an outfit to surprise me (and later Olivia and me both) with. This time, since this was the super duper last time I was ever going to be pregnant I promise, I said I wanted to be the one to do it.
So once we got home, I answered some work emails, worked on edits for an article to kill time, and then left to go to the boutique. I parked and sat there for a moment. I took some photos, including some selfies. Most I later deleted because I’m a flaming moron.
Then I opened the envelope, shut my eyes, debated recording my own reaction but again, flaming moron, and looked.
And there was an ultrasound with a tiny baby penis and an arrow pointing to it with BOY OH BOY! and holy crap, I’m going to have a son. I had decided at the 11th hour that my gut feeling was a boy and yes, I knew it!
Boy oh boy is right.
I picked out what I thought was the cutest baby boy outfit in newborn size and I hope it actually fits him when he’s born. With Olivia, she barely fit into newborn sizes after a few weeks, and Emelia was so tiny and premature that she was in them longer. I really wanted this outfit to be the going-home outfit so I hope I don’t birth a nine-pounder or anything like that.
The salesperson wrapped it up for me (okay I also bought a soft stretchy swaddle blanket and matching hat) and I went home and avoided Chris with more article edits so he wouldn’t see my face and figure it out. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long to pick up the girls.
Olivia was so excited to find out. As soon as we got home, she grabbed the wrapped box and Chris came up from his office and they all sat on the couch.
I started a video and asked Olivia and Emelia each who they thought it was going to be. Olivia held firm and said it was a boy. Emelia said girl.
Then they opened the package.
They’re SO excited to have a little brother.
Especially Emelia. The baby who I thought was never going to be a big sister. She loves pointing to my belly and saying it’s her little brother, Pokemon.
The next morning, Chris and I were leaving for Iowa for a funeral and my parents came over to watch Emelia and take the kids overnight. I was just talking to Emelia about her baby brother so I thought I had her good and ready. But when my parents came and looked excitedly at Emelia as I asked her, “Are you going to have a little brother or little sister?” she proudly exclaimed, “A sister!” and my mom whooped and my dad smiled, and I said, “No, dude. You’re having a brother and you’re fired,” and my mom whooped again and my dad smiled and they’re ecstatic to have another grandson.
That evening down in Iowa, we told Chris’s family and everyone was so excited for us. It’s surreal, having a boy. Knowing I now have a son. It’s wild.
