I am ashamed...

...to admit this, but it will better illustrate my paranoia.

And oh yeah, before you read, everything's ok. I know mid-way through this, it's not going to sound so good, but I'll spare you the mental rollercoaster and just say this: RiceCake, he's still in there. His flicker is still flickering at a good pace.



So... My boobs stopped hurting this morning. Yesterday, they were barely-sore, by noon today I had to squeeze them (hard) to get even a mild discomfort.

I so totally panicked. Called the parents, asked if G could hang out because I wanted to get checked out. Which, of course, panicked the 'rents. Just goes to show that no matter how old your kids are, they can still make your heart stop. Kind of like RiceCake did to me today.


I spent five hours sitting in the waiting room with all sorts of non-emergencies (including one loud cell-phone talker who informed her caller - and the entire waiting room - that she was there because her daughter was throwing up, and her son had the runs. I shudder to think how many germs I may have picked up, but hey - if I get some stomach flu, I'll call it morning sickness and be reassured)

When they finally called me back, I tearfully recounted my two weeks of various aches and uterine pains, culminating in the weekend-of-no-boob-pain, and they agree I need an exam and an ultrasound.

Sweet Jesus, this is what I'm talking about!

Only, this is the very-same hospital where I learned about fetal demise and miscarriage this past spring, so I'm a bit on edge. Maybe even more than just a bit.

The exam went ok - my ute is tender, but hell I knew that before they started poking.. and hey, those ovarian cysts, they still hurt when smushed. Imagine that.

Then comes the moment of truth - the ultrasound.

The doctor powers up the machine, and shows me my uterus.... which is totally f'ing empty. Yeah, this is the part where I lost it. Oh. My. God. Not again. I think I said that three or four times. The doc keeps telling me that it's not a great machine, don't start worrying yet blah, blah, blah... and all I can see is NOTHING on the screen. So she keeps digging away with the dildocam and finally asks me if maybe, just maybe, my uterus is tilted back.

Uhhh... yeah. Is that relevant?

So she jams the cam a bit deeper and suddenly... there is RiceCake in all his smudgy gray glory. I see a tiny, bright-white flicker in the middle, just for a second before he disappears again (because dammit, I sat up to get a better look and she lost him. Again. But at least this time she knew where to find him).

He's measuring behind by 3 days, which worried me til I realized that the measurement was done by a resident who couldn't actually find my f'ing uterus and probably is not so accurate (and, she assured me, due to the limitations of their u/s machine, they don't even start to worry unless he's measuring a week or more behind). Oh, and my gestational sac as measuring two-and-a-half weeks ahead. So.. yeah, something funky going on with the measuring. She was able to get RiceCake's heartrate, which clocked in at a respectable 186 bpm... a bit high, but again, I'm calling that 'user error'. I was able to see that he was flickering faster than last week, and that's good enough for me.

They diagnosed me as "pregnant",* gave me the list of scary things to watch out for that would require a return trip (as if I wouldn't come back for less than that... come on) and told me to eat more - apparently the one abnormality they discovered involved ketones in my urine... Things could be so, so very much worse.




*holyhell, i used the actual word.