heartbeat!!

yay for happy endings!

well, for now at least.

this time i brought a stack of old copies of the new york times sunday magazine with as-yet-unstarted crossword puzzles. good thing too, as there was quite a wait before the ultrasound.

throughout the entire procedure, i was trying to read the doc's face, trying to guess what she was thinking. good news? bad news? she didn't look very happy. tg was right at my side, squinting at the monitor which i couldn't see. he couldn't tell what anything was either. after forever, she said "look!" and turned the monitor so i could see too. "see that? that's the yolk sac. and that's the embryo. see that flickering?" she zoomed in. "that's the heartbeat." we saw it! we saw our wee embryo's heart flickering at 129 beats per minute!

it measures .4 cm long. according to the ultrasound i am at 6 weeks 3 days; i had thought 6 weeks 1 day so that's about spot on.

the bad news: a "moderately large subchorionic hematoma is present at the inferior margin of the gestational sac." this is a blood clot that was probably formed at implantation (other people get implantation bleeding, i got an implantation blood clot). it's not uncommon, and it's not dangerous as long as it absorbs back into the body the way normal bruises do. but if it gets dislodged, it could take my embryo with it.

so: no exertion for the next month (when i'll get the next ultrasound). no vigorous activity. no heavy lifting or jogging (ha).

it doesn't sound too difficult, but it's still quite scary.