It's anatomy scan day!!

Dave and I will be going in to MFM today at 1pm to get a more in depth look at the baby and find out the gender!

I'm seriously exploding with excitement :) I've waited all month for this and now it is finally here! It feels like Christmas morning!!

I've been looking into old wives' tales about gender in order to determine the sex (I know take them with a grain of salt, but it is still fun). I'll say this: I'm carrying pretty much directly in the middle, craving sweets and fruit and was viciously ill in the first trimester. See if you guess correctly!

We are revealing the gender to our families tonight at dinner. I'm bringing gender reveal cupcakes for everyone to eat. I can't wait to see the looks on all of their faces. :)

I'll update again after dinner.

19 weeks

How far along? 19 weeks

How are you feeling? Good!!

Baby is the size of a(n): Heirloom tomato.

Cravings: Peaches!! Good thing Dave got some at the farmers market!

Aversions: The smell of hot wing sauce.

Testing/appts this week? The level-2/anatomy scan is on Friday!!

Milestones: My belly button is almost popped out! *gasp*

Week 18

How far along? 18 weeks

How are you feeling? My back still really hurts and I've been stuffy overnight. Almost every time I blow my nose in the morning though, dried blood comes out. I realize that bloody noses happen often in pregnancy, but this seems like a lot.

Baby is the size of a(n): Bell pepper. Getting big!

Cravings: Anything sweet! (Still) this needs to stop or else I'm going to end up with gestational diabetes.

Aversions: I can't even think about going near the break room at work. The smell in there is too overwhelming (Same as last week). Also, the smell of hot wing sauce.

Testing/appts this week? No appointments, just more waiting. As long as there are no complications, *knocks on wood* I don't have any appointments or blood work until the anatomy scan on August 30th.

Milestones: Nothing this week.

Week 17

How far along? 17 weeks

How are you feeling? My back hurts a lot and I'm noticing it is getting a little harder to bend, which is annoying. Otherwise, I feel good.

Baby is the size of a(n): Turnip. About 5 inches.

Cravings: Anything sweet! (Still)

Aversions: I can't even think about going near the break room at work. The smell in there is too overwhelming (Same as last week)

Testing/appts this week? No appointments, just more waiting. As long as there are no complications, *knocks on wood* I don't have any appointments or blood work until the anatomy scan on August 30th.

Milestones: Nothing this week.

Sequential Screening Results

My results from my sequential screening came back. I'm officially going to exhale.

The nurse called today and told me the results came back. The geneticist usually calls to give the results to patient, but she wasn't going to be in today until 4-4:30pm and the nurse thought that it wasn't fair for me to wait that long for results that already came in.

She also knew that I was nervous about the results because of the fact I'm on an anticonvulsant (even if it is the safest one for pregnancy).

These are the results:

Down Syndrome: 1:5000 (negative)

Trisomy 18 & 21: 1:5000 (negative)

Open Neural Tube Defects: 1:470 (highly unlikely)

The neural tube defects part of the screening was what I was nervous about. The nurse said that they were looking for the number for the neural tube defects to be less than 1:115 so this is great news :)

It's good to know that our baby is doing wonderful and that all the steps that we took in order to make sure that they would be safe.

Can't wait to see raspberry on the ultrasound on the 30th!

Antiepileptic Drug Pregnancy Registry

I decided that I should practice what I preach, so I signed up for the Antiepileptic Drug Pregnancy Registry.

Basically, this is a study by Mass General that documents women who are on AEDs and are pregnant to see the effects of the medications on unborn children. They come out with this study quarterly. You can check out an example of the results on one of my earliest posts here.

What this study entails is an initial 15-minute conversation to get you introduced to the registry and get some background on your epilepsy history. Then, you are left alone until you are about 7 months pregnant, when they call for a 5 minute conversation to ask how the pregnancy is going and have you had any complications. Last, they contact you about 1 to 2 months after delivery to check on if you've had any seizures and the development of the baby.

I figure for little to no effort, my participation will go towards educating others with up to date information and help future couples make the best medical decisions for their situation and their journey to having children. That makes what I'm doing completely worth it.

If you are interested in participating in the registry, or being a control (person not on AEDs participating to create accurate data), you can check it out here.

Week 16

Week 16

How far along? 16 weeks. Can someone explain to me how I'm already 4 months pregnant? This is flying by!

How are you feeling? Sitting has definitely become uncomfortable. My back hurts a lot. I'm only really nauseous if I don't eat right away now. Still having some pretty severe headaches which I'm attributing to the constant weather change.

Baby is the size of a(n): Avocado. About 4 1/2 inches long.

Cravings: Anything sweet!

Aversions: I can't even think about going near the break room at work. The smell in there is too overwhelming.

Testing/appts this week? No appointments, just waiting. I had the blood work for the sequential screening done on Friday and the lady told me that I should hear by the end of this week. So I will just be waiting for that phone call.

Milestones: I have been feeling these little bubbles in my stomach (it feels like low simmering water). I asked Dave's cousin about it (he's a PA) and he said it is quickening! Quickening is the very first fetal movement that happens before the kicks start coming!! That shouldn't be for at least a few more weeks though! 

Doctors...

I had another Ob appointment yesterday. This was just a normal Ob check up to listen to the heartbeat and see how I'm feeling. 

It was with a new doctor. We will call her Dr. U. She doesn't usually work in the office I was at... And I'm glad. I thought that Dr. V was a fear-based doctor, but she was nothing like this.

My mom came to this appt. She wanted to hear the heartbeat and was helping me out while Dave was traveling. Dr. U started talking about my SCHs and was basically yelling at me for being happy with the results from my appt with the high risk doctor.

"You are NO WHERE near out of the woods!" she proclaimed. Then proceeded to tell me that they don't usually send people to that doctor for SCHs unless they "have some horrible disease or something."

I told her to look at my chart.

The baby's heartbeat looked really good though. It was between 148-152. She said he couldn't pinpoint an exact number because she had to "chase" the baby. Every time she put the Doppler near the baby, it ran away. I joked with my mom that it was because raspberry didn't like Dr. U.

This solidifies that I made the right decision by going with Dr. S. I know he's taking on a more administrative role, but I'm going to see if I can start scheduling appts with him again. He is really smart, patient and definitely that opposite of a fear-based doctor.

Oh well, it's over with now and puts me one more appt closer to the anatomy scan on the 30th!