I had my ultrasound appointment this morning to check on the sac. The doctor found the sac without issue. It pretty much looks like just a black dot. He measured it and said it is at the right size for this time frame, then turned the vaginal ultrasound wand toward my ovaries. He said the ovaries look slightly enlarged, which concerned me, but then he said quickly that this is good; he’d expected some enlargement due to the process I’d undergone and am going through, but that it’s not overly enlarged, which is what he did not want to see. He went back to the black dot in the middle and zoomed in. With the mouse pointer, he circled the border at a part of the dot and said that this is the yolk sac. I didn’t see anything distinguishing this black part from any other black part, but then, I was looking at a wall-mounted monitor with poorer resolution than the one he was looking at. Mr. W was looking at the same monitor the doctor was, attached to the ultrasound machine, and told me afterwards that the “color” was different around the yolk part. I asked the doctor whether he could tell where the sac was attached in my uterus. He said he couldn’t yet, since he can’t observe the placenta yet, but that it’s somewhere at the top of my uterus. That’s good, because I read in my baby book that I definitely do NOT want it to attach at the bottom. That would create lots of complications if it’s too close to my cervix. So, according to the doctor, we are seeing what we expect to see at this stage, and everything looks good and normal. Yay! I’m successfully growing a black dot!

When I got dressed and met him out at the nurse’s station, I was given a printout of the ultrasound, which they’d placed into a little photo folder. We laughed, it was so cute. “It’s your first baby photo!” the nurse said. Here’s the inside of the folder:

I went to the phlebotomist station and had a blood draw so they could check my hormones. If the hormones (progestin, I think) look high enough, they’ll start weening me off the Progesterone shots at night. Currently I’m still getting 1cc injected into my butt muscle each night, followed by a nice butt massage and heating pad session, courtesy of the baby’s daddy. Mr. W must be doing a good job with the injections and massage, because altho I’d been warned by others who had walked my path and by nurses and doctors alike to expect tangible lumps or knots inside my glute muscles from the injected Progesterone in sesame oil (which my body should fully absorb and work out within months, they say), I don’t have any as of yet. I’ll update when the nurse calls me later with blood test results.

I had a brief chat over IM with Rebecca this morning. She ended the conversation with, “gonna have to go…sending love and good thoughts…and just for the record, I think this one is gonna take. I do want to remind you that I am not always right, but I am having a sense a fullness right now thinking about you and that’s why I think you are pregnant…xoxoxo”
People in the know have been asking me this week how I’m feeling. “I feel nothing,” I tell them quite honestly. “I don’t know what all these women complain about; pregnancy’s a breeze!” (Yes, they know it’s a joke.)

*** UPDATE:
The nurse called with my blood test results.
Progestin level: They’re looking for a number over 20. Mine is 74.8.
Estrogen level: 1327.
I’m instructed to reduce the nightly Progesterone shot from 1cc to .5 cc. They’re weaning me off! Yay! They also gave me a fistful of free syringes today cuz I was about to run out. I asked for a prescription for syringes, they gave me freebies. Yay!
I’m also instructed to reduce the estrogen patches from 2 (to be torn off and replaced every 3rd day) to 1 (to be torn off and replaced every 3rd day). My body is responding and making the proper hormones, so the doctor is halving all my doses! Yay!