First, I had NO idea that Disqus was such a pain, and I'm sorry I subjected you guys to it for so long. It is gone now, never to be reinstated. On comparing blogger commenting and WordPress commenting, there does not seem to be too much of a difference. WP IS nicer in other ways, but when I think of how much else I have to do when I move, I sort of whimper and think it is not worth it. So I'll *probably* stay here. So commenting is easier, and as a favor to you all (I hate it when I have to do it on other sites), I've turned off the word verification thing. Hope I am not immediately bombarded by spambots or whatever else that mysterious feature protects against.
Pregnancy news: J will be 19 weeks along tomorrow. She apparently went for an hospital visit last Thursday and everything was fine. She is not having an easy time of it though: while her hemoglobin levels are just below the the lower edge of normal, which is apparently good for a pregnant person, she tells me that this pregnancy has been much rougher on her than her last pregnancies, with constant dizziness as well as nausea. One reason could be the crazy high beta HCG levels...the levels in almost all my pregnancies has been really high: one clue about how high came in the dual marker scan at 12 weeks; they express the levels as "multiples of the population mean" or MoM. So if you have a beta-HCG MoM value of 1, your levels are at the population mean. In this pregnancy, the beta-HCG MoM was 2.15, which may be the reason she is feeling so crummy. I hope it is nothing more sinister than very high pregnancy hormone levels.
The one thing that I've been freaking out slightly about is the placental grade. Classically, you are supposed to start with a grade of 0 in the first trimester, move to 1 in the second trimester, stay as 2 in the second trimester and most of the third trimester, and hit 3 only just before you deliver. The placenta was grade 1 in the first trimester, and grade 2 already by 17 weeks. I expressed my concerns to the fetal medicine specialist, and she told me not to worry, that the grading system is obsolete; now what counts is the placental blood flow as measured by the doppler. And that, apparently, was normal. We go in for another scan this week, as recommended by the fetal medicine specialist.
I now have to start thinking about feeding this baby, and how to come up with breastmilk from a safe, tested source. I'm also starting to weigh the pros and cons of induced lactation. Every time I start to think about planning for when the baby comes, I'm paralyzed with fear: what if I start doing stuff and something goes wrong? But as the weeks pass, I do have to put that behind me.
In other news, I found this excellent Fertility Authority article on multiple embryo transfer that I thought was worth sharing. What they said about the shortsightedness of American insurance companies in refusing to cover IVF and thus pushing people to transfer multiple embryos and then having to pay for the staggering medical costs arising from complications in twin/triplet pregnancies was spot on...talk about penny wise and pound foolish! I wish they at least covered transfers as a compromise.
Pregnancy news: J will be 19 weeks along tomorrow. She apparently went for an hospital visit last Thursday and everything was fine. She is not having an easy time of it though: while her hemoglobin levels are just below the the lower edge of normal, which is apparently good for a pregnant person, she tells me that this pregnancy has been much rougher on her than her last pregnancies, with constant dizziness as well as nausea. One reason could be the crazy high beta HCG levels...the levels in almost all my pregnancies has been really high: one clue about how high came in the dual marker scan at 12 weeks; they express the levels as "multiples of the population mean" or MoM. So if you have a beta-HCG MoM value of 1, your levels are at the population mean. In this pregnancy, the beta-HCG MoM was 2.15, which may be the reason she is feeling so crummy. I hope it is nothing more sinister than very high pregnancy hormone levels.
The one thing that I've been freaking out slightly about is the placental grade. Classically, you are supposed to start with a grade of 0 in the first trimester, move to 1 in the second trimester, stay as 2 in the second trimester and most of the third trimester, and hit 3 only just before you deliver. The placenta was grade 1 in the first trimester, and grade 2 already by 17 weeks. I expressed my concerns to the fetal medicine specialist, and she told me not to worry, that the grading system is obsolete; now what counts is the placental blood flow as measured by the doppler. And that, apparently, was normal. We go in for another scan this week, as recommended by the fetal medicine specialist.
I now have to start thinking about feeding this baby, and how to come up with breastmilk from a safe, tested source. I'm also starting to weigh the pros and cons of induced lactation. Every time I start to think about planning for when the baby comes, I'm paralyzed with fear: what if I start doing stuff and something goes wrong? But as the weeks pass, I do have to put that behind me.
In other news, I found this excellent Fertility Authority article on multiple embryo transfer that I thought was worth sharing. What they said about the shortsightedness of American insurance companies in refusing to cover IVF and thus pushing people to transfer multiple embryos and then having to pay for the staggering medical costs arising from complications in twin/triplet pregnancies was spot on...talk about penny wise and pound foolish! I wish they at least covered transfers as a compromise.
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