Whoosh whoosh whoosh

Zippy has a heartbeat! It's somewhere in the 170's, which is pretty much where Emily's was at this point too, but apparently that's pretty standard. My OB also assured me that it doesn't feel like I'm carrying twins, PLUS I still haven't gained any weight (sweet!), PLUS they'll now draw my blood for me AT the office instead of sending me to the creepy lab across the street that is always crowded and just skeezy. So I am feeling pretty jazzed. Once we got past the confusion of me having to convince the secretary that I was pregnant (they had me down for a well-woman check, and I had to tell her that I WAS well, but I was also pregnant) and once I managed to produce my second urine sample since they got all excited and threw away my first one, everything went very well.

The thing that got me most excited though, is that I get to have an ultrasound in 2 weeks! Squeeee!

Apparently in the time since I was pregnant with Emily, they have started to offer early screenings for genetic abnormalities. I don't have any risk factors, but it includes an ultrasound so hells yes I want to do it! I had my appointment today in a room with a sign over it that said "Sonogram". I asked the nurse if that meant I got a sonogram, and she hemmed and hawed and basically said "Maybe". I sat there waiting for the doctor, staring at the sonogram machine (and Will sat there giggling at the pile of condoms that they use on the sonogram probes) hoping for a sonogram but also not.

The rule, it seems, is that if the doctor can find the heartbeat with the doppler, that's proof enough that you're pregnant and the baby is doing well so they don't do a sonogram, but if they can't find the heartbeat, they go looking for the baby. This rule makes me feel so torn. While she's pushing the doppler around in the goo on my belly, and I'm laying there listening to the static, part of me thinks "Please let there be a nice strong heartbeat" while another part of me that I keep telling to shut up thinks "Please don't let her find the heartbeat so that we can have a sonogram and see the baby!". SOMETHING is making me exhausted and making my stomach pop out, so I am pretty sure things are progressing as they should, but even still I can't quite bring myself to wish not to hear a heartbeat.

But hear a heartbeat we did, so Zippy is in there presumably growing away and doing what he/she should, AND we get to see him/her in 2 weeks! Now that we have a heartbeat and I'm not having any concerning symptoms, my odds of miscarriage are down to about 4%, and I am at the point where I would already know if my pregnancy was ectopic, or molar, or if I had a blighted ovum, or any of the other strange and terrifying things that can go wrong but still mimic a healthy pregnancy.

But even with many of my concerns eliminated, I still can't wait to see those arms and legs on an appropriately-sized, properly attached baby waving at me in 2 weeks :-)