17 Weeks

I had another midwife appointment today and all was well. A couple of things surprised me actually.

First off, I discovered that I have only gained 3 pounds since the last visit 4 weeks ago, which is well within the average of a pound a week during the second trimester. My total weight gain so far has only been 8 pounds. I'm happy with that. I still wish I had lost more prior to getting pregnant but I'll have plenty of time to worry about that later!

The second thing that surprised me was finding out how large my uterus is. At this point, it's just below my belly button. I don't know why but I thought it was far smaller. So now that I know that, I realize that I have been feeling quite a bit of movement (I dismissed most of what I was feeling because it was much higher up than I thought my uterus was).

The midwife talked to me about screening tests at this point, namely the AFP blood test. She said, given my age, it would very likely come back positive, since age is a factor in the equation for the test. She said if it did come back positive, the course of action would be a higher level ultrasound and possibly an amnio. I decided I didn't want to fool with the blood test since the results would be essentially meaningless. But I liked the idea of going straight for a high level ultrasound. These are done at the University hospital downtown and includes a consult with a perinatologist for the results. I opted for this route because I think (hope!) it will give me much more peace of mind to have someone looking at things who is more highly trained to spot problems. I can't honestly say at this point if I would do an amnio. I'm taking this one step at a time. Anyway, that is scheduled for 6 December, which is next week Wednesday when I will be 18 weeks.

That's about all I have to report. The visit was very boring and consisted mostly of discussions of what we did for Thanksgiving and what our Christmas plans are. Hopefully all my visits will be that inane!