perfect little heart

This Valentine's Day has been the sweetest yet.

Valentine's food for my loves: heart-shaped mini pb&j for Remy and fajitas with bell pepper hearts for Dave.

And since I'm just over 12 weeks today, it seemed like the perfect time to announce that a new little sweetheart is on his or her way.



I love most things about pregnancy but the agonizing waiting period of the first trimester is not one of them. And this time around the first few weeks were a little harder than they were with Remy, because...drama.

We found out I was pregnant the Sunday before Christmas, and the following Friday, the day before Christmas Eve, I was having some upper abdominal pain that I figured I should be a Responsible Pregnant Lady about and call the OB. She sent me to Urgent Care (it was after hours) to have my gallbladder checked, but you know who Urgent Care doctors won't touch? Pregnant women.

So on I went to the Worst ER in the World. I won't call it out directly on the off chance that my experience and the experience of a couple of friends have been flukes, but seriously, it's pretty bad. It's sparkly clean, brand-new, and nearly always deserted, yet is also apparently staffed by less-than-competent jerks. (This is going to be a bit of a rant but I promise there's a point.)

Long medical story blah blah blah short, they did an unnecessary pelvic ultrasound after which the Nurse Practitioner waltzed into the room and told me that the pregnancy was not viable because they could not detect a heartbeat. At something like 4 1/2 weeks gestation (I was sure of the dates). I don't have any letters after my name and even I know that at 4 1/2 weeks not only will nothing show up on an ultrasound, but an embryo's heart physically does not start beating until between 5 and 6 weeks gestation.

Now here is the point of this story: if you ever feel like a medical professional is doing a crap job of taking care of you, advocate for yourself. Even though it was 9pm I insisted that the NP page an actual OB for a consult before she sent me home with a "your pregnancy isn't viable, have a nice Christmas." And the OB told her that it was a perfectly normal ultrasound result for that early in a pregnancy, and to quit freaking me out and let me go home.

OB/GYN Kenobi was right. And a week and a half later, we saw a teeny tiny little dot on a second ultrasound--a dot with a healthy heartbeat.

A single perfectly heart-shaped red ivy leaf from the sea of jagged green leaves in our yard, found the day before our 10 week appointment, where the doppler picked up the baby's heartbeat at a strong 175bpm.

And five weeks after that, at 11 weeks 4 days, a great NT scan showed a perfectly healthy baby, and this mama started breathing just a tiny bit easier.

It will never stop blowing my mind that in a few short weeks they go from cluster of cells to blob with heartbeat to clearly distinguishable little human form.

Note to current uterus resident: we are all stocked up on drama now. Lets have a comparatively uneventful next 6 months, shall we?