ICLW July

Welcome ICLWers.  I haven't participated in a while because once I got pregnant after my first IVF cycle I wasn't sure if I should participate.  Whenever ICLW came around, I wouldn't click on the links to the women that were pregnant that I wasn't already reading.  I could handle reading someone's blog if I was with them through treatment, but I didn't want to start reading someone after they were pregnant.  Weird, yes, but it is what it is.

So whether you are pregnant or still in the trenches and came over from ICLW, thanks for clicking over!  For my infertility history, check out my timeline on the right hand side of the page.

If you don't want to hear about pregnancy stuff, then today's post may not be the right one for you.  But I do try to talk about anything and everything on this blog- not just infertility and pregnancy.

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Yesterday was my 20 week ultrasound.  I had a Level II ultrasound because my due date is only 6 days before my 35th birthday.  We didn't get any great pictures of the baby, but thankfully everything is progressing normally and looks good.  My silly fears on having an incompetent cervix were unfounded (woo hoo!).  Also, I am in awe of ultrasound technicians and their ability to figure out what is actually on the screen.  Our tech was pointing out features on the baby and I was like, "huh?"  Things like the head, spine, hands, legs, heart, etc. were easy enough to find but that job definitely takes some skill.

We asked the high risk doctor to tell us when he was checking out the gender just in case we thought we saw something (or didn't see anything!).  I turned my head towards CP and kept my eyes open, watching him to make sure he didn't look at the screen.  He peeked quickly but assured me that it was just to check to make sure I wasn't peeking!!  Of course as soon as the doctor told us we could open our eyes we were both DYING to know the sex!  But it continues to be a mystery....

Yesterday was also the last chance to get an amniocentesis.  We received good news from the 12 week ultrasound and the bloodwork that dropped our chances of having a Down Syndrome baby from 1 and 312 (the risk for my age group) to 1 and 2293. Based on everything my risk has dropped to 1 in 5000 or so.  There is no way that I would risk doing a procedure that could result in a miscarriage in 1 out of 300 pregnancies when our risk for Down Syndrome is so low.  Not to mention even if the results from the amniocentesis came back positive, I'm not sure we would do anything anyway.

My only bad news was that at least one of my fibroids has grown. At the last ultrasound it was only 2cm....yesterday it had grown to 5cm.  They couldn't find the second fibroid.  The high risk doctor didn't say anything about the fibroid (the ultrasound tech pointed it out)so maybe it is not a big deal? I would like to talk to my doctor to find out if it is going to create a problem with the pregnancy.  She mentioned that fibroids can either shrink, stay the same size, or grow larger with pregnancy and I guess my fibroid picked one of the options that I didn't want because it often causes pain. Booooo.

My uterus seemed to be a little bruised or sensitive the rest of the day yesterday.....I guess it wasn't a fan of someone pushing down on it for an hour.  Otherwise I am happy and anxiously awaiting my next ultrasound!