The day of a million Dr's appointments

First let me say, WE HAVE MADE IT TO 12 WEEKS! What a relief! Our risk for miscarriage has been greatly decreased. We can finally start to relax a bit.

So since we have made it to 12w we had our first Dr's appointment. Something we never got to with the first. This consisted of health history, weight, blood pressure, an exam, listening to the babies heart beat, and asking any questions your heart desires.

Sean did attend the visit with me as I felt he should know where the Dr's office was and it would be the first time we would actually be "listening" to the heartbeat. I also knew that my prego brain would fail me when they would ask me questions, and that it did. Sean was quick to ask a few questions for me that I had forgotten about.

The other item that were really neat was the heartbeat. We had visually seen the heartbeat on the ultrasound twice but haven't been able to hear it. So the nurse got out her doppler and put it on my belly and started to try and find the heartbeat. After a few seconds of searching, she finally found it. She said "let me turn it up...can you hear it?....can you also hear the baby moving around a lot?" Shwoo Shwoo Shwoo, baby was swimming around and wouldn't stay still for us to catch a good reading on the rate. Finally baby stopped and it was found to be at 160. A good rate.

Our next appointment was at the same office but for another ultrasound to have our elective downs syndrome testing done. With this test the technical name is "nuchal translucency." What this consists of is a measurement of the fluid or space between the babies neck. Normal range is up to 2mm at about 11 weeks, and up to about 2.8mm by 13 weeks and six days. Our results reflected 1.4. What a relief.

Side note, baby was being quite a stubborn thing just like his daddy. Baby had fallen asleep and wasn't moving around anymore so the ultrasound tech was having to do a little manual pressure or bouncing of the wand on my belly to get baby to move to get a good reading. My poor bladder.

At this time Sean had to return back to work but I was scheduled for my last appointment which was for a blood draw with the genetic center which coincides with the ultrasound. With the blood testing and other testing that is elective with the genetic center, they will be testing for any genetic abnormalities.

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We were also given homework from our doctors office to call our health insurance company and find out a few items such as if we will have copays with pre and post pregnancy visits, as well as the hospital visit for deliver either natural or c-section. Much to my surprise, we will have no co-pays for pre and post pregnancy as well as no copay for our hospital visit. That was a sign of relief for our financial outlook. I joked with Sean that we could put that money towards diapers now.

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Upon my return of doctors appointments I informed Sean that I had returned back to work from them. Sean quickly asked if I was more excited. I let him know that I've been about the same for a while now (probably since our last ultrasound on 09/15) but then questioned him how he was doing.

Sean throughout the 1st 12 weeks has also been quick to make sure I wasn't overly excited given out prior situation, and he would also make it known that he was still cautious but waiting for the moment in which we would get past the danger zone so he could truly express his real feelings and excitement.

Today Sean finally let me know that he has entered into the excitement part of this pregnancy and it not holding back.

So here it is. It's real, it's scary, and oh my, we're going to be parents!