10 week appointment update

Appointment went well. The reception area is a bit decrepit, and the wait was forever (I had a long wait in the room too), but the time with the doctor was actually okay. The exam room was clean, she explained everything that was going on, and asked several times if I had any questions. She's a bit brusque, but that doesn't actually bother me - I'm much more likely to be bothered by fluff and too much peppiness. I will still check out another OB or two, but I will go ahead and schedule my next appointment - I can always change it if I find a doctor who is a better fit for me. I will have my NT scan sometime in the next three weeks - it's actually at a separate ultrasound facility so that works.

News from the appointment:
Fibroid is apparently the reason that I'm looking so pregnant. Exact words from the doctor: "Whoa! That's a big fibroid! Looks like 5 months pregnant!" She talked with me about the potential risks with the fibroid: pre-term labor, needed c-section, possible degeneration of the fibroid which would be extremely painful (like appendicitis). But there's nothing you can do but wait and see, and if something happens, we deal with it then. There is so much waiting in this baby-making game. :)

TMI alert: apparently my cervix is long and closed, and that is good? Closed I get. I don't really understand about long, but I'll take good. I like good.

AND ... I heard the heartbeat!

I wasn't holding out any hope since I'm exactly 10 weeks today (although I look twice that!), so even when she said we would listen, I was thinking we wouldn't be able to hear anything and I was trying to psych myself up so I would be okay with it without freaking out. So she has the doppler on my belly and I hear the swishy sound (apparently the background noise of my uterus), and the doctor says: "There's the baby's heartbeat. Do you hear it?" And I'm like, "No." What I was hearing was definitely not the baby's heartbeat. So now I'm losing faith in the doctor. But she perseveres. After what feels like 20 minutes - which was really probably only about 2.5 - with her face really intense, gaze focused sternly at the wall (why the wall? No idea), she says: "There it is!" And there it was - my baby's heartbeat! Wow. In some ways it's a little creepy - there's a little person with a heartbeat inside. It's totally different to hear the heartbeat than to just see it on the screen (maybe some part of me thought someone was photo shopping a baby for my sonogram pics? I don't know what nonsense goes through my ridiculous mind). It's really real. And because of the timing, I will have 2 more appointments in the next 4 weeks - the NT scan, which will give me more pictures of my baby, and my next OB appointment 4 weeks from today. So 2 more opportunities for reassurance, and then I'll be in trimester #2!