Unoriginal

First, thank you, all, so very much for your kindness and support in the last several weeks. The idea that nobody knows our babies, that for most people they didn't exist and don't matter is apparently one of the common crazy-making ideas of this experience. So it is incredibly helpful to know that so many people know A, remember him, and think of him and of us. Thank you.

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I had been spotting most of the week. Red both anniversary days, but not much. Then brown and black on Friday. I had to go into work very early Friday morning to finish preparing my first mini-lecture of the semester. So I headed home a little after the class was over, figuring I would put in my "morning" progesterone suppository (since I didn't have time for it before I took off for work in the still-thorough darkness of winter predawn) and get in a short nap before going to get Monkey from school. I called my OB's practice on the way home, hoping to get an ultrasound before Tuesday's appointment, to check on the continuing spotting. They called me back after I put in suppository but before I fell asleep for my nap-- Dr.Best, who supervises ultrasounds for the practice on Fridays, wanted me to come in right away, without waiting for Tuesday.

So this is how come JD and I ended up at the hospital a year to the day after leaving it with our memory box and no baby. I thought how lucky it was that I got to drive in from home rather than take a shuttle from work, since walking from the shuttle to the offices takes me down the hallways we had to take to leave the place last year. Coming in in my car I was able to park in the garage under the building where the offices are and never enter main the hospital complex.

The news was also much better this year. Good strong heartbeat, measurements on target. The technician didn't find anything in terms of the source either, but Dr.Best did-- a small subchorionic hematoma. At first I was actually relieved to see it-- there was an actual explanation for the week of spotting, and I know how common it is. I even said something like "oh, there it is." Of course now that I have had time to think about it, I am a little more freaked out. It can, of course, suffocate the fetbryo. And it does increase the odds of abruption later on in pregnancy. But it seems small. That's what it looked like to me, and that's what Dr.Best said. And this is what I am holding on to-- it seems small. The smaller it is, the less likely it is to cause trouble. No spotting in the last day either, so taking it as a good sign. Not enjoying a thought of a blood clot sitting under the still-forming placenta though. Not even a little bit.

Dr.Best also found what looks like a corpus luteum, which I wasn't sure was there from the previous ultrasounds, so I feel a little better about the progesterone issue-- I no longer feel like maybe the suppositories I shove in morning and evening are the only things keeping the fetbryo in there. I will also ask for a progesterone blood test on Tuesday, to see how much the placenta is kicking in these days. Suppositories are a pain in the ass. Actually, more like a pain in the lower back (from lying with my ass elevated), plus they make me sleepy and make it hard to concentrate. But I will take all that over wondering whether I did all I could. Not an original thought in any way, I realize. And neither is the hematoma story. I could do without that drama, but I suppose I have to settle for low grade drama.