13 Weeks!

At 13 weeks we had our second OB appointment. I was told that I am supposed to see every doctor in the practice so when it comes time for me to deliver, I have seen every doctor at least once. I am not a huge fan of this, as I would like to see the same doctor every time and have that same doctor be the one to deliver me, but I know that is not how most offices work these days. I was supposed to see the nurse midwife this appointment, but it turns out she had an appointment herself, so I ended up seeing the same doctor I saw at nine weeks. He is very nice, but he resembles someone I know all to well, so that really kind of creeps me out! Anyways, we started this appointment by getting weighed and peeing in a cup. At this point I had not gained any weight, but thankfully I had not lost a lot which is what I worried about due to my all-day-sickness! When the doctor came into the room, one of the first things he asked me was if we were planning on doing the genetic testing. This testing has to be completed prior to 14 weeks, so he needed to know that day whether or not we had decided to go forth with the testing. While I would have LOVED to have another ultrasound, we opted out of the genetic testing. We have no known risk factors and we did not want to put ourselves through all of the worry since many of these tests have false positives. I am a NICU nurse, so I think I worry enough! Extra tests and false positives would send my hypocondriacism (if that is even a word!) to a whole new level!! After asking 100 more questions he finally pulled out the doppler! He found the heartbeat right away and the baby's heart was beating at a fast 168 beat per min! For those of you that don't know, at about 10 weeks, I purchased my own doppler online because I wanted to hear the heartbeat all the time with this baby and all future babies! Some people laughed and thought I was crazy for buying it, but it really is the best thing ever! At first I had a hard time finding the heartbeat because it was so low and the baby was so squirmy, but starting at about 12 weeks I was able to find it without any problems. The heart rate started out in the high 160's and as the weeks have gone on it has drifted into the high 140's and 150's. I definitely used the doppler more often when I first bought it, but I would say I use it about once a week now.

At the end of this appointment, I assumed I would be scheduling my next appointment for 17 weeks and then 21 weeks. I figured they would do our 20 week ultrasound at 21 weeks. Apparently this doctor likes to do the 20 week ultrasound earlier rather than later, so he had me schedule my next appointment for 18 weeks and he said he would do the ultrasound then! I can't believe that we have only had two OB appointments and our next one is the BIG ULTRASOUND! So on January 11th we get to see how much our peanut has changed since six weeks!! I am pretty sure we will see more than a flickering black blob this time :) Another thing I forgot to mention...we will NOT be finding out the sex of the baby! I have people calling me daily trying to change my mind, but I am sticking to it! I have been told by quite a few people that my doctor should be expecting many phone calls on Jan 11th. Haha.

I will be sure to post pictures as soon as we get the ultrasound!