Baby Gilbert's First Scan

Ramin and I went to our first baby appointment today. It wasn't with the people who are actually going to help us through the whole process, instead, this was with the University of Utah's Healthcare System. They requested we come in for a "viability scan" because I had previously seen Dr. Keye in the same system when we were still trying to conceive. He was our reproductive endocronologist and they like to see you through a few weeks to make sure the pregnancy is viable before they send you on your way.

Our appointment was at 11am and we arrived about 10 minutes early. When they called our name I immediately recognized the nurse, also named Jennifer. She had helped us the last time we were there to see Dr. Keye and I think she remembered me as well (I was wearing the same shirt). She did the usual diagnostic type stuff when you go to any doctor appointment. I found it funny that one of her first questions was "So how did you conceive?" - and I replied "Completely naturally!". I think they're used to having unique circumstances there because when Dr. Moore came in a bit later he asked the same question :)

I had my blood pressure taken and I'm happy to report it's a low 114/76! I think that's the lowest I've ever seen it for myself. It might explain why I've had a few dizzy spells over the last week or two - nothing serious.

Dr. Moore came in (he's the one that does the viability scans) and let us know what he would do. I had an internal scan with one of those probe things. It didn't hurt so don't worry. I don't think anything going up there could even come close to the pain I experienced during my HSG test...this was a piece of cake (hardly felt anything).

And there it was....

Our little tadpole is in there. Imagine a little tadpole curved around with the heart beating in the white center. We actually did see the heart beating really quickly...actually it was more like flickering on the screen.  Dr. Moore told me to hold my breath a few times so he could see things better. He also got the probe close enough to turn the sound on. All I heard was static, but Ramin and the Dr. definitely said they heard something (I was too busy concentrating on my breathing :P).

When I sat up after it was done and Dr. Moore said everything looked fine, I started to cry happy tears - for the first time since I found out I was pregnant. Now it's more real to me.

Baby Gilbert is measuring at 6 weeks and 1 day so they moved my due date to May 11th. I'm still sticking with my original May 5th due date because I know I'm 7 weeks (I'm extremely confident in the date I ovulated). Ramin and I also believe that because it took the baby a while to produce a lot of HCG that perhaps it's behind on development. I've read some stories of where this has happened and the baby has caught up farther along in pregnancy. I think that will happen for us.

I cannot stress the amount of relief I have knowing everything is OK thus far. Dr. Moore said that now that viability has been checked, our chance of miscarriage goes down to 10% at this point. Amazing!

I'm just so beyond excited right now! It's hard to concentrate on anything at this point :) I just want to stare at the picture all day long :)