PTSD

All day on monday I was having a lot of anxiety whenever I would think about my ultrasound coming up on Tuesday. I would feel my blood pressure go up, my heart would race and my chest felt heavy. I realized that this will be the first ultrasound that is at a location other than my doctors office with Erik (He hasn't been able to come to all the US this time) where there is a potential of finding out genders. The last time this scenario happened was the day we lost Brynn. I was afraid to get an outside US, even though it wasn't at the same location, this was at the perinatologist and Brynn was at the elective 3D place, but I was in a panic. I was afraid to get excited about the possibility of knowing the genders. I felt guilty, like I shouldn't care about that because last time I wanted to know so bad and ended up with a dead baby. I didn't want to seem like I didn't care mainly about their health and safety!

The morning of was rough! I had tummy troubles and I was so nervous I couldn't sit still yet I couldn't be functional enough to be productive. I was a mess.

Also my perinatologist is connected with L&D at Shawnee Mission and you have to wait in the L&D waiting room. The last time I sat in that waiting room was when I was waiting to get induced with Brynn. I'm not gonna lie, it was torture sitting there. My stomach was in knots and we waited for an hour past our appointment time. Finally it was our turn and I was able to see their beating hearts and relax.

The skin/fluid on the back of their necks measured very thin: Baby B 1.6 and Baby A 1.1 and they like to see less than 3 when screening for trisomies and heart defects, so this was fabulous! Not that this guarantees anything... Brynn's was 0.8 and I didn't exactly bring home a healthy baby, but it is still reassuring to have that on our side.

We attempted to look at genders at the end of the scan and I'll share that story in my next post...

If I had this much anxiety about this ultrasound, I can't imagine how it will be going back to the elective place, so hopefully we won't have to go there.