7w ultrasound

I will not tell this story with any sense of drama, because I hate it when news is buried.

So: we have a heartbeat. We have one appropriately sized embryo with a heart fluttering at the right sort of rate.

Now the tiny bit of story:

Of course I've been worrying steadily for the past week few days. After a fitful night, I hit the worrying-crescendo this morning. The doctor's visit started out differently, because now everything is different. I've been there for a thousand ultrasounds -- pants off, up on the table, see ya later. This time there I got my weight and blood pressure taken (rather ineptly -- the med assistant was clearly asleep when they taught "how to get an accurate blood pressure reading". No, the patient's arm should not be dangling by her side) and gave a urine sample. Then I waited on the table, cross-legged under my modesty drape, trying desperately to remember my yoga breathing. I watched the girlfriend knit and held her ball of wool, which was very soothing.

Finally he came in and I eagerly scooted down on the table, knowing that in a few seconds my suspense would be over. But it was not to be because OW OW OW OW OW OW OW. It hurt like hell. Even when I had 25 mature follicles a transvaginal ultrasound never hurt like that. I yelled and I think at one point I said "YOU HAVE TO STOP THAT RIGHT NOW" (he did, because he's a nice man and good like that). We tried three times and it hurt so much that I just couldn't lie there. Turns out that because of my swollen OHSS-y ovaries, my uterus is now located somewhere around my chin. My left ovary is so large that it is behind my uterus, pushing it forward into a very unhelpful position. This also explains why I look five month's pregnant still.

So everyone in the room is standing there, a little appalled I think, and he decides to try the abdominal ultrasound. And he gets a picture that, to him, looks like a flickering heartbeat. I am barely used to reading the vaginal ultrasounds, and what he was able to get on the abdominal looked like nothing to me. But he said "there's the heartbeat" and of course I burst into tears, which must have made the ultrasound jiggle, but I couldn't tell because I was crying. I pulled it together pretty quickly, though, and asked if we could give the transvaginal another go.

This time I squirmed down and, on some instinct, tipped my pelvis up (that's "bridge" to you yoginas). And this time it worked and was no more that somewhat uncomfortable.

Um, it's also possible that -- although it didn't feel that way to me -- my incredibly tense muscles were incredibly tensely spasming for the first round, and that once I got some good news they relaxed enough for the ultrasound to work. But I prefer to think that it was my clever pelvic tilt.

Anyway. He took four CRL (crown rump length) measurements; 6w4d, 6w6d, 6w6d again, 7w1d. All plus or minus two. Even the worst of those wouldn't send me into a frenzy. He eyeballed the heart rate and said it looked like around 130 to him, which is perfectly normal.

I am exhausted and I am so, so grateful.