Scan: One Healthy Baby, now with Extra Hemorrhages!

Another week, another high-resolution ultrasound. First, the good news: despite hanging on to those adorable (?) alien facial features, our baby looks great. S/he is 55mm long from crown to rump and has a lovely fluttering heartbeat. This was the clearest scan yet, and we were able to see all sorts of details like fingers and toes and a reassuringly normal nuchal space. Our odds for both Down's Syndrome and Trisomy 18 are nice and low, which is a big relief.

However. It seems that whenever I write about this pregnancy I have to add an addendum of not-so-good news, and today is no exception. We saw the sub-chorionic hemorrhage from March 20th and it's getting smaller - great! And then the sonographer moved the wand over to a different part of my belly and... wait, what's that? Could it be? Why, it's ANOTHER HEMORRHAGE! Ding ding ding! Folks, tell the lady what she's won!

Yup, there's another sub-chorionic hemorrhage, on the small side size-wise, but this time it is behind the placenta. It was probably the source of the spotting I had last Friday, which makes some sense, and there's no indication that it consists of anything besides old and clotted blood, so it probably stopped pretty soon after it began. It could be related to the original hemorrhage, but it might not be, and nobody seems to be terribly curious about why this keeps happening. They just keep saying that it will probably work out fine, but blood is an irritant so as long as it's in there it puts me at higher risk for miscarriage, etc. It's particularly deflating because every day I'm passing a significant amount of what are probably the grossest brown clots that I've ever seen emerge from my personal region, so I was all set to go in today and have them say "Wow, looks like you're really getting rid of this thing!" and I would blush modestly and say, "Well, you know, my uterus just knows what it wants" and everything would be happy and we could start telling people and tra la la.

Now, dear Internet, you remain on a very short list of people and places where I will (anonymously) discuss my pregnancy. The big extended-family holiday gathering we're having this weekend? Deflect all questions. The four "glasses" of wine I'll be expected to enjoy as part of our Seder? I'll have to switch my goblet with Harry's halfway through the meal. The friends who are going to come with me to see Titanic 3D in the theater? Distracted by my baggy coat, we hope! Oh well. I always thought it would be kind of badass to just announce a pregnancy at like 5 months along and impress everyone with our secret-keeping abilities, and now we may get the chance to do just that.