11 weeks with Olivia: We heard a heartbeat

I was wondering how this ultrasound was going to go being that it was neither at my fertility clinic, nor my OB. (Did I do that neither/nor thing right?) Since the fertility clinic here where I was being satellite monitored for Houston kicked me out*, I was concerned about how I was going to do my last two ultrasounds. The care coordinator at my OB clinic actually told me last week to go to this nearby imaging center, since they are used to out of state orders and my clinic didn’t have a process in place to do the orders from out of state. I last was at this imaging center when I was having the blood pressure/headache issue two years ago when they wanted to do an MRI on me. I got the orders sent over without a hitch but was wondering how this was going to go being that it’s not an OB center. I wasn’t sure how often they did OB ultrasounds.

I just have to add here, symptom-wise, I haven’t been feeling all that bad in the last week since I started taking Unisom and B6 at night. Of course, now the nausea comes later in the evening when the medication is wearing off. We have been planting our garden and I have been participating by slowly digging holes for the plants and trying not to hurl into the grass, but it’s been going well and we are almost finished.

That being said, I was starting to get the fear back that something was wrong with the baby. I know, I know, I am a psycho, but I was feeling pretty much normal yesterday before the evening set in, and I was worried**.

However! Yesterday was the last day of my PIO shots!

Today went well. The woman that did my ultrasound at eleven weeks exactly was really nice, even though she said she was going to do the transabdominal ultrasound on me, and did you know how hard they push into your stomach? 1) it semi hurt and 2) it tickled because anything that touches my lower abdomen causes me to suck in and squeal.

Baby is still there, measuring 4.14 cm (1.6 inches) at a day ahead and heart rate at the time was 167, although the baby wasn’t very active at the time. But oh the movements! Those arms and legs waving around like crazy and that tiny little body arching…be still my heart. There was even a moment when the tech showed us where her legs were crossed. I could watch that all day.

I asked her if we could video it, and she said she was going to make us a disc. I then asked if we could hear the heartbeat and she told us that the sound waves didn’t work well with their equipment. But she must have taken pity on us because as we were watching the baby move, she flipped a button and smiled at us and suddenly the room filled with that whump-whump-whump sound and of course then I burst into tears and she let us take a video on my phone of the heartbeat.

Listen to this. It’s a beautiful sound. The video makes it quieter, so you may have to turn the volume all the way up.

What a way to start the weekend.

*Ok, I didn’t get kicked out, but my doctor there told me that they could no longer see me since I’m further along than they usually even see patients, and they are too busy to accommodate my weekly ultrasounds as ordered by my doctor in Houston. And I am pregnant and emotional and wasn’t ready to fly the nest, even though I am still under the care of Houston. Thus: kicked out.

**In fact, look for my Mom.com post next week, in which my editor will probably appropriately title “In which Risa uses the word ‘worry’ 56 times in a 700-word article.”