Graduation Day

Today, we met for the last time with Dr. L and his wonderful staff at Advanced Fertility Care.  This clinic has really been amazing, so thorough and warm and caring.  I have loved working with all of them.  We also saw the little belly bean again today, who has had exactly one week's worth of growth in the past week - couldn't be more perfect! The heart rate is now 134bpm, strong and regular.

Little baby, has now grown to 11mm - almost tripling in size in 1 week!

 



 

Today also marks the day that we have been released to the care of my INCREDIBLE midwife at Nurturing Hearts Birth Services which I am SO excited about! We will see her for the first time in exactly one month, June 6th, at 12 weeks pregnant.  M & C are a bit nervous, as any new parent would be, about waiting that long for a check up but I'm feeling great about this little bean, I'm having lots of pregnancy symptoms and I know everything will be just fine! I am to continue taking progesterone and estrogen support for the next approx. 3 1/2 weeks until the placenta takes over, but other then that - we're a "normal" pregnancy now and couldn't be happier about it!



First ultrasound!

We had our first ultrasound this morning which revealed one tiny little belly bean, measuring right on track and nestled in the perfect spot - we even got to hear its little heart beating away at 111bpm!

 Little baby, measuring 4mm

 

 

As a seasoned mom of 4, the "glop glop glop" of the fetal heart beat is a familiar, albeit reassuring, sound to me - but to hear and see the reactions of M & C as they heard their much-loved baby's heart beating for the first time was PRICELESS, absolutely priceless.  I feel so honored to be on this journey with them and can not wait to hear that "glop glop glop" many more times!

Baby's heart rate (at the bottom)

Fortunately, I won't have to wait long! We go back next Monday for a repeat ultrasound and if everything still looks good - we'll be "graduating" and will be released to the care of my AMAZING midwife for the duration of the pregnancy.

Growing, growing, growing...

Yesterday was our 5^th and final blood test and the beta hcg level came back at 1908.7 which is EXCELLENT! We are definitely catching up in numbers and this little bean appears to be healthy and growing quickly! We will have our first ultrasound on Monday 4/29; because it’s a very early sonogram (we’ll be 6 weeks + 4 days) they will be looking for three main things – how many do they see (there should not be any surprises here as we only transferred one but there is a small chance, as with any pregnancy, that the embryo could have split into identical twins), how big they are and the placement within the uterus.  If we happen to see a flicker of a heartbeat that is fantastic but if we do not it's ok because it’s still early.  We will go back about 10 days later for a second ultrasound and it’s really at the second one that they would expect to see the heart rate.  In the meantime, we're all very excited for Monday!