Sneak Peek

Five days after our 2nd beta test we had our first ultrasound to see what was going on in there. Dr. W was looking for a few specific things such as a gestational sac, yolk sac, fetal pole and hopefully a heartbeat. Early in pregnancy the gestational sac and embryo change drastically every day, so being off by even a few days with dating can make a difference in whether or not the ultrasound should detect a heartbeat. Around 5 weeks a gestational sac becomes detectable, at 5.5 to 6 weeks the yolk sac should appear and around 5.5 to 6.5 weeks the fetal pole appears and it is possible to detect a heartbeat through a vaginal ultrasound. The fetal pole is the first visible sign of a developing embryo. This pole structure actually has some curve to it with the embryo's head at one end and what looks like a tail at the other end. The fetal pole allows for crown to rump measurements (CRL) to be taken, so that pregnancy dating can be a bit more accurate. The fetal pole may be seen at a CRL of 2-4mm and the heartbeat may be seen as a regular flutter when the CRL has reached 5mm. 

We had our ultrasound when I was 6 weeks 1 day so we expected to see a gestational sac, yolk sac and fetal pole. I made sure to tell Paul that at this point we may not see or hear a heartbeat and that we shouldn't worry about that at this point (but of course I was worried). 

Dr. W was able to see everything he should! Below you can see the fetal pole between the two + signs.

Dr. W then moved the wand around a little more and saw our second gestational sac, he was very cautious in telling us this because the sac was significantly smaller than the first one. He said we would wait and see but that he did not think our second embryo would continue to grow. Then he moved back to look at embryo number one and take some measurements.

Dr. W pushed a button on the monitor and all of a sudden a woosh, woosh, woosh came through... we heard the heartbeat for the very first time and saw the little flicker on the screen! He pushed some more buttons on the computer and it calculated that the heart was going at 106 beats per minute! He would have liked it to have been a little higher but since the heart could have begun contracting just day before he was not worried about it being just under "normal".  So long as the heartbeats kept going up by about 3 beats a day between then and our next appointment he said everything was looking good. 

Our first look at the heartbeat, the lines at the bottom of the screen show each beat.