65dpo 11w5d - Results are in!

No aneuploids. And it's a girl!!!!!

Every test marker came back as not detected, so the lowest risk. I'm so relieved.

And I am so excited to be having a girl!! It was my slight preference, although obviously I wouldn't have really cared either way. So I guess I can be official now! I've been toying with whether or not I do some sort of announcement. They don't seem as common here in the UK as the States, but a lot of my friends, etc. are far away and really won't otherwise know unless through a very long grapevine. Anyway, I have time to think about it. I wonder if I can finally relax about this pregnancy just a little??

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

65dpo 11w5d - And still waiting

Okay, okay. Today is really 9 days which was the earliest they said it would come. But it's getting to me more and more.... I had a nightmare about it last night. I really hope the results come by the end of today. Don't know if they work on Saturdays. Assume not Sunday. So if not today possibly next possible day is Monday? Ugh. I'm going to lose my shit if it comes back inconclusive and needing another blood draw.

64dpo 11w4d - Still waiting

No NIPT results yesterday.  I think they said it was usually around 9 days.  Yesterday was 7. So I'm not surprised. Again it could be today, but again, due to time differences, I wouldn't expect anything until the afternoon/evening.

My midwife said that I need to start baby aspirin from week 12 to help prevent preeclampsia which officially is next Wednesday. So today I am going to try to remember to go to the drug store at lunch and pick some up. Next week I am running another workshop so I will be very busy. I'm not staying with the students though, I will be going home every evening so I can easily take my vitamins, etc.

I really hope I get the NIPT results before my 12 week scan which is next Thursday. I should, although they said it could take up to 2 weeks (but in their experience never had).  Even so, two weeks would be the day before the scan, so hopefully it will come through.

And hopefully it will be all 'no aneuploidy detected'.

Meanwhile, my gut continues to feel 'full'. Sometimes the fullness feels like I've eaten a big mean (when I've eaten nothing). Sometimes the fullness vaguely feels like I need to poop. No wonder pregnant women get hemorrhoids! While trying not to focus on waiting for results, it is fascinating to observe all these shifts in my body. Although it's still incredibly difficult to wrap my head around there being a little creature inside of me!!

63dpo 11w3d - Still waiting

I figure today would be the absolute earliest I would get an email with the NIPT results and it won't be until later in the day because of the time difference to the States.  But really I'm not expecting it today. I'm starting to feel a bit anxious about the results. Because I did not do PGS testing, I have the standard chances of the fetus having chromosomal abnormalities. Because the age of the egg was 38 or 39 as opposed to my current age of 41, there are slightly better odds but they are still not great.

Apparently the risk of Down Syndrom is between 1/175 and 1/137.  The risk of any chromosomal abnormality is between 1/102 and 1/83. Now of course many of those random abnormalities cause
miscarriages or a lack of development.  I know that little squidge is developing at the right pace, so I think my odds are slightly better for the general chromosomal abnormalities, but perhaps not for Down Syndrome.  I'm really not sure. And while I wouldn't be confident of winning a draw with those odds, it's not so large that I feel confident I won't get the short straw.

At any rate, the fact is that the genetic makeup of the squidge is already established and all that is happening now is that I am waiting to find out what it is.  Worrying makes no difference. I'm just impatient.

My body continues to subtly change. Mostly now I feel constantly bloated or 'full'. I can tell that I am fuller above my belly button, towards my lower rib cage, or at least that there is pressure there. It's not obvious to anyone else other than me, and mostly I notice because of the pressure feeling. I think I still have a way to go before I properly show or anything like that.

I managed to start a conversation with the boyfriend last night which although inconclusive was progress. I know that he's really still not come to terms with what this pregnancy means for him, or how he thinks about it. I stressed that how it feels to me is that he is tolerating my pregnancy, and that tolerating it is not really going to fly in the longer term. He insisted that was not how he felt, but then it was also clear that he's still conflicted. I think he worries that he will become attached to my child, but that I could 'disappear' with the child at any time. Of course this could happen in general, and there are no guarantees in life. It's something he needs to mentally come to terms with. But at least we are talking about it, and there is still time.

In completely unrelated news, I still have a wicked bruise on my left arm from the blood drawn at my GP's office almost two weeks ago now. I've started taking some iron supplements because although they did not call me to say that I'm anemic, I cant' think of any other reason why the bruises are fading so slowly.

57dpo 10w4d - Scan and NIPT

So the scan went well and everything looks normal! It looks like a proper little fetus now with an oddly shaped bulging head and little stumpy legs and arms. They checked the length and it looks like I'm on target for my fertilization due date which is 10w1d or due on February 15th. They also tested the heartbeat which came in at a strong 170 beats per minute. She was able to show me the placenta which is in the front which means I may feel less movement/kicking for a while. I also got to see the yolk sac which isn't completely gone yet. Basically, there was plenty of time to ogle the little being living in my uterus. I couldn't stop grinning. It was very reassuring, and then of course, fucking terrifying!!! But that is as it should be.
 

Being measured - just the right size

Heartbeat

3d view- it looks like a fetus!!

She also managed to take my blood in one go after looking at my vein with the ultrasound machine to make sure she really had a good one.  She was extremely gentle and I barely felt the needle going on. It was slow to fill and eventually stopped giving blood however, luckily just when enough had been collected for the NIPT. They will send my blood off to the States to get tested, so I won't have the results for at least a week. I've opted in for everything to be tested which includes finding out the sex. I'm still nervous that this final hurdle will prove the one where things go wrong, but I'm feeling much better at the moment. I am really fucking pregnant. It's not just a fluke. Holy shit.

On the taxi ride to and from the clinic I was playing Pokemon Go (yes, I know). It was a novelty to be in a car and be able to grab and collect things. On the other hand, it made me really nauseous.  I'm still nauseous now, which seems odd. I wonder if it triggered some of the underlying morning sickness I've otherwise been avoiding.  Hopefully it will pass soon and go back to how it was.

So other than waiting for the NIPT results, my next scan is the official dating and Nuchal Fold scan the first week of August. Hopefully I get the NIPT results before that scan, because they are are more accurate than the Nuchal Fold screening and it would be useful to go into that scan with the test results. 

56dpo 10w3d - 25%

According to my retrieval/fertilization date, I am exactly 10 weeks today (despite my LMP tracking date). If a pregnancy is around 40 weeks, that means I'm a quarter done already. I know that pregnancy counts in trimesters, but 40 doesn't divide well into 3. And anyway, at this stage, counting days and weeks is more the thing. So 25% it is.

Tomorrow I have arranged an NIPT and a scan. I'm nervous about the scan- that it will show that things have gone wrong. I will be very relieved if it doesn't, but I'm nervous now just the same. Today is also the first day that I'm completely off the progesterone/Cyclogest. There was nothing notable about reducing the progesterone, so it should be fine to go off completely now. Yet another removal of something that made me feel pregnant though!

I will of course report back on tomorrow's scan. Whatever will be is already determined. So it's just for me to find out what it is. I suppose the irony will be if the scan is normal but the NIPT is not. But of course I won't have those results for another week again. So, potentially straight from one waiting period to the next.

54dpo 10w1d - Worrying

It's very easy for me to generally forget that I'm pregnant. I don't have any major symptoms other than tiredness. My breasts seem to have settled a bit after growing some and being sensitive. I still get very fleeting moments of feeling 'off' but nothing as much as nausea or throwing up.

Yesterday I convinced myself that maybe I wasn't pregnant anymore or had miscarried (or had a 'missed miscarriage since I haven't had any cramps or bleeding at all). So I peed on a stick which reassuringly came up straight away pregnant. But then I wondered if it was lighter than the last time I did the test. I think this is somewhat brought on my by wanting to schedule my NIPT this Friday. I can't quite find the one I want without a scan, so I get a scan thrown in (or rather, I pay for it). So I started to wonder and worry about what the scan might show.

This all ended up meaning that in general I felt grumpy yesterday. I may have been snappy with the boyfriend, which also continues to bother me because we've still not talked about the baby situation. I'm still annoyed that I need to bring it up and that he doesn't talk to me. I will, at some point, but maybe not when I'm feeling grumpy about it.

Actually, maybe I just feel irritable in general. It's hard to think of things that are making me happy right now. Work is stressful. People annoy me. Not all people, but a lot of them. I'm sure that the stress at work is not helping, and the stress of worrying and trying not to worry is not helping. I keep expecting the bad news to hit, and that's just not a useful mindset.

The only moderately positive thing on the pregnancy front is that I reduced my progesterone/Cyclogest to one a day and I only have one more day before it's gone. I was a bit worried about reducing to one a day, especially when so many women online seem to report staying on until week 12 and here I was reducing at week 9 to stop at week 10. But so far, no difference in my body or discharge or anything, so I assume it's all fine? Yay to fewer fingers in bums!