Not Worrying

I can’t believe it has taken me this long to update on my doctor’s appointment last week. Things have been busy with working, doing things around the house, and going to NC over the weekend. But, I must talk about what happened at the appointment last week. First, my blood pressure was back down to 128/74, the baby’s heartbeat was at 152 bpm, and my fundal height was 20 cm (the appointment was at 20 weeks). It also turned out that I had lost ½ pound since the appointment at 16 weeks. I could attribute that to a few things: being a lot more aggressive about keeping a good workout schedule and being more cognizant about what and how much I was eating. I also find that I don’t always eat when I’m hungry if it happens to be inconvenient at the time (i.e. in a meeting at work, etc.).

It turns out that I have to have a follow-up ultrasound in two weeks. Apparently, the radiologist is a little concerned that the baby’s abdomen measurements may be lagging behind the head and the leg measurements. Now, the doctor didn’t seem worried at all and it doesn’t make too much sense to me either. The measurements from my first ultrasound were as follows: head = 17.3 weeks, abdomen = 17.1 weeks, and legs = 17.6 weeks. I asked the doctor if everything was as it should be. She said all her anatomy looked good and my placenta is in the “back” which is perfect. Since the doctor didn’t seem concerned, I didn’t think a lot of it and just took my form to order the ultrasound and left the office.

On the way back to work, I started thinking about what I had been told. Of course, I unloaded on the Internet once I was here. I started researching to find out what the big deal was. It turned out that a high head/abdomen ratio could mean that she is experiencing “nutritional growth retardation”. So, combine that with the ½ pound weight loss over 4 weeks and a first time mother-to-be starts to worry just a little bit. Am I not eating enough? Am I exercising too hard? Am I not getting enough rest? Several people have worked to convince me that I should wait until the ultrasound before I try to adjust anything. I read that one of the treatments for this type of retarded growth is bed rest so, I admit that I have been trying to get a little more sleep – back to the daily nap of the first trimester.