I don’t think I’ve ever been as anxious and ill feeling as I was this morning. Not only did I have a sodding dentists appointment but Matt and I had also booked a last minute early reassurance scan to check the viability of baby number three.
It’s only just been eight weeks since we lost our pregnancy at the same clinic we went back to today. If you’re interested or missed the post you can read about my miscarriage here. We almost decided against booking as we, understandably, associate the clinic with bad memories. However, the more I thought about it the more I wanted to know. I wanted to be prepared for anything that may be wrong or anything that might be abnormal.
I the knew the receptionist would offer us a coffee as soon as we arrived and I immediately said no. I didn’t want any part of this appointment to be like the last time. We were called in immediately and the sonographer, having looked at my registration form, asked if I was nervous to which I replied “yes”. She reassured us that she would get straight down to business and check the baby’s position and size first and foremost to rule out anything nasty. With another loud, squirty squeeze of the gel she began scanning across my tummy. It felt like forever and then a big black mass appeared on the screen. I didn’t say anything but suddenly, as she jabbed the probe into my tummy a little further, a tiny white dot appeared to be attached to the edge of the big black blog. That was the baby.
Baby Magovern #3 6w 1d
It turns out the, if I’m remembering correctly, that the big black area is my uterus, the small, white area to the right of the uterus is the baby and the bubble like thing below is the yolk sac. The yolk sac will eventually disappear around 9 weeks when the placenta takes over.
Before the sonographer had even zoomed in on the area I asked if the movement I could see was the heartbeat to which she replied “yes” – I was silently screaming with happiness! Once the screen had focused in on that area you could see a strong, steady, fairly quick heartbeat. I think she measured the rate at 118bpm. The size of the baby signified a gestation of 6w and 1d. I assumed I was around 5-6 weeks so getting this confirmed was fantastic. The due date, at the moment, is 26th May 2016. More measurements and exploration of my insides were done and the baby currently measures a whopping 0.43cm. I can’t believe something so small can take over my body the way it has.
After all this good news, the sonographer got a little more ‘sensible’ sounding and informed me that I have a subchorionic haematoma. To you and I this means I have a small bleed or bruise within the area around my uterus. You can see it in the image above – it’s the dark area beneath my uterus. She could see I look concerned and went on to explain that, in most cases, the bleed gets absorbed by the body. She didn’t explain what happened if it didn’t.
I went home, as you do, and Googled subchorionic hematoma. I read that actually, yes, most pregnancies end with a healthy baby but a percentage end in pre-term labour or miscarriage. The bleed becomes large and presses on the placenta and damages it, from what I understand, which sparks the body into labour. I read a story about a lady who lost her baby at 21 wks due to this exact cause. I tried not to feel to down about it and carried on reading. It seemed positive that the bleed was spotted so early on. Early pregnancy hematomas are usually absorbed and nothing to worry about.
I haven’t seen a midwife yet, but hope to next week. In the meantime I guess I’ll just take it easy, plod on to 7 weeks and watch my belly grow!
Hey my lovely, I’ve been following your posts since you last found out you were pregnant and I was just starting to try for baby no 3. I’m over the moon for you and glad today gave you some reassurance. I got pregnant at end of July and so am 12 weeks on Monday. I too have a small haematoma which made me bleed at 10 weeks very mildly. I ended up having an early nhs scan which revealed baby was doing great. I was told haematoma would absorb and bleeding would stop. 2 weeks later and all is great. I have my first ‘official’ scan on the 12th. Don’t Google as I did that too and I think these are often worse case scenarios. Stay positive my lovely!! Really happy for you x x
Author
Morning Kirsten, thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences. After the scan I was a real mix of reassured and worried. I did google about the haematoma and I did read some awful stories but I also read the earlier they appear the more likely they are to reabsorb so I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed and trying to rest as much as possible so as not to aggrevate it. Congratulations on your pregnancy xx