Placenta Previa

I had some bleeding yesterday, so the doctor had me come in today. They did an ultrasound and said that I have a thing called placenta previa. The placenta is lying unusually low in your uterus, next to or covering your cervix. This is bad because it can cause bleeding and premature birth. The placenta has to be delivered after the baby. So it causes problems with delivery. So we will see.

Hopefully the placenta will migrate up away from the cervix. I still have time for that to happen. In the meantime, I have to take it really easy.

If there are no problems, we go back May 28th. It was neat seeing the baby. It is a lot more developed than last time. It actually looked like a little baby.

Here is an article on the Placenta Previa:

http://www.babycenter.com/0_placenta-previa_830.bc?page=1

Pregnancy Test

I realized that we never wrote about how we found out I was pregnant. I guess I should preface this by saying, I have never bought or taken a pregnancy test before this baby. I never had a situation where I thought I was pregnant or anything like that. I know pretty pathetic at my age.

I started feeling nausea a week before I was late. The thing that seemed so strange to me was that the nausea started every evening at 9:00 p.m. It was like clock work. Then the unheard of happened, everything sweet looked gross. Now that never happens :) I am on a 25 day cycle, so when 25th day came and nothing happened...I was suspicious. Another thing that never happens.

So on day 27 I was in Wal-Mart shopping. I decided to pick up a pregnancy test. Holy cow was I surprised at the cost. So of course I bought the cheapest one. I get home and showed Duane. I was quite proud of my purchase. Then it turned out to be an ovulation kit. Yes pretty embarrassing. I am the female, I should know these things. Doh. So the next day Duane goes back with me to pick one out.

Since these tests are so expensive, we decided that we would wait a few more days to test(30 day mark). Well I made it to day 29 and couldn't wait any longer. It was around 10:00 p.m. So I gave it a shot. The little strip changed colors right away. Now I have heard horror stories about these tests. Like they are hard to read and you need a PhD to figure them out. So I thought it could not be this easy. So I am reading the instructions again and rambling. I was so anxious to find out, but the test took three minutes. So Duane made me leave the room until it was done. I set the kitchen timer to be sure and waited.

After the three longest minutes of my life were over, the answer was...YES! We were so happy. After five years of marriage finally our first pregnancy. I called the doctor the next day and it is has been a pretty crazy learning experience since then.

The hardest thing has been keeping it a secret for the most part. Only our family and couple friends know. We are planning to tell everyone once we make it another month along.

Weeks 12 - 13

At the begining of week 12 we had our next doctor's appointment. We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. The baby's heart beat was 160 BPM which is good. We don't go back to see the doctor until April 27, 2009.

I was having cramps. It turned out to be spasms of tendons that attach in the front and rear of the pelvis. Prior to the pregnancy I had problems with my back and hips. I have tendon elasticity, which causes my hips to come out of enlightenment easily. They rotate forward and backwards beyond normal ranges. During pregnancy, hormones can cause the pelvis tendons to become even more movable. So the pregnancy has made my existing issues worse.

It seems to be the worst when I am laying down. When I lay flat on my back I can not move my legs at all. It is a strange feeling. I have to roll over to my sides before moving my legs. So pretty much I only lay on my sides anymore. I have a king sized pillow (about the same size as a body pillow) that I have been propping behind my back. It seems to help quite a bit.

I am in physical therapy and that is helping. My therapist has told me to try and walk now as much as I can. I may not be able to do much further down the road. My therapist also ordered me a special belt that is supposed to help stabilize the hips. So we will see...

I am starting to be less nauseated, which is great. I have actually been really lucky here. I have heard some pretty awful stories from other women.

Here is a link to my personal web-site where I embedded the audio file of the heart beat. From my personal site there is another link to click. Once you click on that link, it should pop up a download dialog box.

http://www.school.elgans.com/Baby.html