21 Weeks

Forgot to post the last u/s picture:

Ultrasound - 16.5 weeks

First off I apologize for not updating yesterday. The girls are keeping me insanely busy right now so computer time have been limited to work and little more. The ultrasound yesterday went very well.

This is the point in my pregnancy with the girls that we found out something was wrong in Abby's brain so we were a little nervous. Thankfully baby looked great for gestational age; a little small (19th percentile) but the doctor was very pleased. The brain looked great. They tried to see both kidneys (they paid close attention because the family history of one... IE: Grace) but couldn't confirm they were both present.

We also were able to detect gender (they were about 95% sure). Drum roll...

It's a boy!

I thought it was going to be another girl but like with the girls I was wrong. It's very exciting to be having a boy. For us it isn't as if we are having our first boy. We have Will and Jordan so we have done the whole "boy thing" endlessly. But after a string of baby girls (four in a row in our family) it's time for a boy!

Answers or confusion?

Today I heard from the pregnancy nurse at the clinic about yesterdays blood draw. Of course I wasn't available to talk to the nurse so I got the usual two second message with nothing but numbers. No answers. No interpretation. Nothing. Just numbers. She called and told me my HCG was at 10,435, Progesterone at 35.2 and E2 at 284. SO all of my numbers are low. The most concerning is the HCG. On average HCG levels (for a singleton) at this point average 29,110 with a range of 19,910-43,220. I am only at 10,435 with two babies. So it doesn't look that great. Top it off with both babies measuring a little behind (5 weeks, 4 days at the 6 week, 3 days ultrasound), one baby lagging way behind, the lack of pregnancy symptoms and now the low numbers... not great.

Pregnancy is a funny thing. You can have terrible numbers and things look bleak and have a healthy baby OR you can have a baby that looks fine that suddenly stops growing. It's certainly not an exact science. However, we have been around the block enough to know that when things don't look good there is usually a reason.

I have had pretty awful cramps for the past day (no bleeding) so who the heck knows. I am scheduled for another round of blood work and another ultrasound next wednesday (at 7 weeks 3 days) so hopefully we can start get a clearer picture of what is going on in there.

I guess in the midst of all of this muddiness one thing has become very clear. I am incredibly lucky to have my daughters. I don't think I could handle this potential loss without knowing that I still get to be there mom no matter what happens. I still have two beautiful daughters and that is what is most important right now.

So it's in God's hands. He'll show us in time.

Ultrasound #2

This afternoon was the much anticipated ultrasound #2. I was SO nervous I cannot even put it into words. I did my blood work first and had to wait a while to have my ultrasound.

The tech finally called me and got started and she went from chatty to silent. Obviously this made me a little nervous. She found one heartbeat quickly but didn't say anything for a good 2 minutes. She finally did find the second heartbeat but it was only 85-90 compared with the 124 of the first baby. She took a bunch of measurements before showing me the screen. What I saw was two sacs. One was much larger than the second (at this point they are less than 5 mm in size and one is 2mm smaller).

Here you can see the size difference:





There was a lot more inside the sac of the larger baby:



Two heartbeats, one was much stronger than the other. I also have a "cystic structure" right above the bigger of the two sacs.

They are not giving me any type prognosis... I know they can't commit to much. They did decide to bring me back in a week when they usually go to every two weeks at this point. They said they "want to check in the little guy". So it looks like we could be having twins but very well may end up with only one. We have come to terms with whichever happens. We had a vanishing triplet with the girls and have learned how to deal with the loss.

Who knows what will happen but I think we are as prepared as we can be either way.