Week 10 Ultrasound

Today, we officially graduated from our fertility doctor and I had my last ultrasound at week 10.  I'll definitely going to miss the place.  The nurses are caring and my doctor is thorough, charming and sometimes emails me directly to let me know things are all taken care of.  Some of the nurses and sonographers already know me by name as I arrive to check-in.  I will miss their pampering.

As usual the couple of days leading to the ultrasound day is always nerve-wracking.  I always worry whether my baby is still growing normally.  I also worry when the feeling of queasiness disappears.  But the ultrasound turned out normal.

Baby has a heartbeat of 174 bpm and pregnancy size is 9 weeks 6 days.  Here’s how he/she looks now. Looks more human!  Hallelujah!

Week 10, heartbeat of 174 bpm

Last August 22, I completely stopped my PIO (progesterone-in-oil) injections.  What a big relief as I was having muscle pains on my bum all the way to the back of my lower leg.  I’m glad my fertility doctor ordered to stop it after seeing my bloodwork that weekend.  I’m still on Prometrium suppositories and Estradot patches.  But I have a feeling I will be stopping them soon.  I have to wait for the doctor’s order on Tuesday as Monday is a holiday.

Overall, I really don’t have dramatic pregnancy symptoms like vomiting.  I get headaches and nausea from time to time but I’ve been having that symptoms from the very beginning of this IVF journey due to the high dosage of hormones medications I take.  I guess I’ve been feeling the symptoms of pregnancy for so long that I don’t even notice it when I started becoming pregnant.

I finally got referred to an OB/GYN in Mt. Sinai Hospital.  I requested from my family doctor that I wanted to have an OB/GYN from that hospital and that’s where I intend to give birth.  I heard great things from the nurse at my fertility clinic who gave birth there.

So I had my first visit with the OB/GYN today.  What a long wait time! We arrived 5 minutes before my appointment and filled out a bunch of paperwork, then we waited for an hour and a half before being seen by the doctor and nurse.  When we finally got to talk to the doctor, he was very concise and explained the need to take various blood tests.  One of them is NIPT (non-invasive prenatal test to assess the risk of Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome), 18 (Edwards syndrome), 13 (Patau syndrome).  It is due to my advanced maternal age.  This test is also called Harmony prenatal test.  This phase is probably the most stressful so far. (Okay, I keep saying that each time I hit a milestone.)  Glad this is covered by OHIP.  I pray daily that this baby will be chromosomally normal.

Well, there’s still weeks 11 to 13 to go through before I finish the first trimester and after that I probably will be able to relax more.  And this is very nerve-wracking because this embryo is not genetically tested.  It’s of the lower grade (4AB) but the one that has progressed this far compared to the other perfectly graded (5AB) and PGS normal one that ended in miscarriage in 5 weeks 5 days.