Monday, October 27, 2008

Week by Week

Just wanted to update after my doctor's appointment today. They did the fetal fibronectin and we should have results tomorrow. But, for instant gratification, the doctor also did an internal and noted that my cervix still looks closed and long and doesn't appear to be thinning out. This is very reassuring as it means my cervix is holding up well even with all of the uterine activity and Apple's head sitting right up against it. If the test comes back negative, it means they are 99.9% sure I will not go into pre-term labor in the next two weeks. If it comes back positive, it means I'm at an increased 30-40% risk of pre-term labor in the next two weeks and we need to revisit the plan. Given the status of my cervix, we are fully expecting a negative.

So, all good news so far. We are also moving to weekly appointments. Yippee! Since the fetal fibronectin is good for 2 weeks, we'll do this test every two weeks. On the alternating weeks, they'll do a vaginal ultrasound to check cervical length. Ah, my old friend, the dildo cam. It's been awhile! So now I go in every Monday. Full ultrasounds will still be every 4 weeks, although we'll see if I can convince the sonographer to take a peek at Apple and Banana during the cervical length checks! I went ahead and made all of my appointments through December 15th. Hopefully I'll still be pregnant by then and able to keep all of these appointments.

The doctor is also still comfortable with me working for now, but agreed cutting back would be a good idea. She did say that if any of the fetal fibronectin tests come back positive or if my cervix starts shortening at any point in time, all bets are off. So for now, I continue just plugging away, but we will revisit plan once a week.

3 comments:

Paula Keller said...

Just catching up on your last couple of posts. You are ALL belly! My gosh!

donellad said...

Glad everything went well at the appointment. I really hope that test comes back negative for increased chances of pre-term labor.
I don't have experience with a twin pregnancy, of course, but I know BH contractions can be scary. One night in my third trimester I was having one of those nights where my belly was hardening every 20 minutes or so. I called the doctor on call. He said it was perfectly normal, of course, and that I felt the BH more at night because I was thinking about it more (!?) Hmm. Who knows. Anyway, sorry this is so long. Hang in there. I know it's hard when you have fear that something will go wrong. I'm glad your doctor is taking your concerns seriously.

Maryanne said...

Great news yesterday, and I am sure the test will come back greta today!!!