First Ultrasound

This morning, I headed down to Baltimore to get an early ultrasound to date the pregnancy and hopefully see a heartbeat. I was a little worried that I might not be far enough along to see the heartbeat.  Before he conducted the ultrasound, my doctor went over my hormone levels. Last Monday, my HCG levels were around 9700. By Friday, they had increased to over 30,000. He said that based upon those numbers alone, I had to be at least six weeks pregnant, probably closer to 6.5 weeks pregnant. Going by my last cycle, I would be six weeks, six days pregnant, but those are always sporadic, and he knows that, so he knows that going by the date of my last cycle would not be an accurate way to date the pregnancy.

Then he took a peak with the internal ultrasound machine and was able to find the spot where the baby was implanted. Because of the way in which the baby was implanted, he could not get a good measurement. The baby is somewhere around 5mm big, so the size alone makes it difficult to get a measurement. But his measurements did coincide with my HCG numbers and my last cycle, so everything seems to be developing normally. The ultrasound had me at 6 weeks, 0 days to 6 weeks 5 days pregnant. The good news was that we were able to see a beating heart, which is an excellent sign. When I saw that little dot flickering, I knew it was the heartbeat even though I could not tell what anything else was. All I wanted to do was just stare at this 5mm dot flickering back and forth. It truly is amazing, a true miracle of God. I lay there in awe just looking for as long as he would let me.

He asked me to come back in two weeks so he could get another look. By then they baby will be more than 2 cm big and it will be much easier to get an accurate measurement and date the pregnancy. In two weeks time, he will give me an official due date. Based upon today's measurements, we are looking at anywhere from November 29 to December 3.