8-Week Check

I've been a little delinquent in keeping up with blogging the last few weeks (well, months if you really want the truth!)...  I've been reading, just not writing.  The fact is, I haven't had much to write about.  It's been a bit dull around here.  And with the cooler Monterey weather (the heatwave across the country has simply missed my little corner of the world) summer just doesn't have the same allure and variety of hot sunny fun I'm used to...

But I do have a few little outings to fill you in on.  But that'll be for another post.  Because this time I'm just gonna give you the down and dirty and a little TMI.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

A couple of weeks ago I went for my first OB appointment for 2.0.  Dr L took an ultrasound, confirmed that I am preggo (my mom wasn't convinced, I don't think!) and that my due date is exactly what I told my mom it would be.  For some reason my mom doesn't seem to believe that I learned anything in nursing school (or that it can be Googled) and thought I was full of poop when I told her my due date would be March 13th.  Well, guess what Dr L said?!  My due date is, in fact, March 13th!  And she said that on the ultrasound, the baby was measuring to that very same date, so she thought I'd be pretty darn close to my due date, just like I was with Bunkey.  Only time will tell, I suppose.

Dr L told me everything looked normal.  Except, she mentioned, the ultrasound showed a tiny bit of uterine bleeding.  Or blood in the uterus, to be a little more clear.  She told me not to worry and that she was not concerned about a miscarriage.  She said that more than likely it was simply "implantation bleeding" as the placenta forms and attaches to the uterine wall, that I may or may not see this blood exit as spotting, that I shouldn't worry, that there was definitely a heartbeat, a yolk-sac, and all the other bits that are supposed to be there.  

But of course I'm worried anyway.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss.  I'm counting the days before my next appointment at 12 weeks so I can ask her if it's still there.  Anything to get a bonus ultrasound, right?!  I'm also counting down to the next appointment because 11 weeks into my last pregnancy is when I lost my dad.  I lost my Mamaw M as we were starting to try for 2.0 and I lost my Nana L 5 weeks into this pregnancy.  I'm tired of losing loved ones right when I find out I'm pregnant.  I don't subscribe to the idea that babies "replace" those we've lost along the way, but that theory keeps getting thrown into my face!  I will say that even though I lost both my grandmothers in a span of five months, there is only one "replacement" baby residing in my belly.  I made Dr L check and re-check!

And then here's the TMI.  Dr L asked if I had any other questions, and I had a few based on the new family history of strokes that's developed since my dad died nearly two years ago.  But I also had one other, rather embarrassing, topic to bring up.  Since Bunkey was born, I've had off and on - ummm - discomfort while going #2.  To the point that I squirm on the toilet trying to find a way to make things move a little more smoothly.  And often there's a little spot of blood on the toilet paper.  It was never anything horrible, so I never brought it up before.  but I figured that as long as I was there and naked, I might as well ask.  Well, Dr L slapped on another pair of gloves, lubed up a finger, and did a rectal exam.  And told me to push.  No, not squeeze, which was my first reaction, but to push.  Like pushing out a #2.  And sure enough, I have a hemorrhoid.  It's tiny one, but it's there.  She took a sample to check for any other reason for the minor bleeding, and there's none.  So it's just a nasty hemorrhoid causing the pain.  And of course there's nothing she can do while I'm preggo, so I just have to wait it out, hope it doesn't get worse, and deal with it in, oh, approximately 30 weeks!

Sorry I had to share that with you!

But that's the news, for now, and soon I hope to have a burst of energy wherein I can fill you in with a few pictures of the handful of outings Bunkey and I have gone on in the last little while!

Have a great weekend!