Well Visit

Baby bump at 17 weeks, 2 days

And there it is! Baby crane making it's presence known.

I had my well visit today. And everything looks great. Baby was moving and grooving, with a perfect heartbeat. I'm up 2 pounds, and the doctor said that's fine. She said it's probably just delayed due to the severe morning sickness I had. She said my minimum weight gain during pregnancy should be 15 pounds, as long as it doesn't affect the baby's size. 20 would be best. A little over 20 would be fine, too.

We talked about something I knew about but hadn't thought about in a while: how IVF is going to play a role from here on out. To be honest, I kind of felt like things would likely be the same as a normal pregnancy but  I know that IVF makes a woman more prone to deliver early and have a baby with a lower birth weight. We learned about this in our initial IVF paperwork. Disclaimer: this is not to say all women who undergo IVF will have a baby earlier or with a lower birth weight. I'm rooting for it not to happen to us; it's just statistics. 

The doctor told me that because I did IVF to get pregnant, the baby's weight is more of a concern. This is a general rule; it's nothing that's wrong with me or baby crane. Because of this they'll need to begin monitoring baby more closely now that baby crane is going to start packing on it's pounds.

I'm still thinking I might have misunderstood - maybe not all of these appointments will require a sonogram. But from the sounds of it, I'll be going in a lot and seeing a lot of the little one.

Baby Crane and I will have appointments at 20, 24, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 and 40 weeks. I don't mind it. I'm used to that type of thing. It's surprising because we've already had more sonograms during my pregnancy than the average pregnancy total.

My mother in law guessed the more frequent schedule was because the doctors think I'm anxious. Oh regular women. How nice it must be to think doctors want to see you to ease your fears as opposed to monitor the safety of a non-traditional baby. Brian thought that theory was funny. He thinks it'd be awesome if I could fake anxiety to see the baby. Though he had a good point that every first time mom would be faking anxiety, and they'd need to be open 24 hours a day to accommodate all of us.

I might try to act anxious next time I go in to see if her idea works though...

I am very eager to see the baby in 2 weeks. The past couple ultrasounds it measured a little behind but I'm routing for it to be measuring ahead so I don't have to think about the possibility that the doctor could be on to something. I'm also excited Brian will get to see it looking like a baby an opposed to a gummi bear.

And it's crazy to think that this time next year, baby will be about 7 months old!

Keeping baking, baby crane! At least until February! But your dad and I are super excited to meet you.