Houston, we have a heartbeat!!!

Ahhhhhhh. I guess tears would have been the outcome of my first ultrasound no matter what the result. Within seconds of starting the ultrasound the tech said, "I see a heartbeat." And I cried. Relief. Excitement. And honestly a little bit of disbelief. It was overwhelming. I kept telling myself the entire car ride in that if there was nothing there that it would be okay. And I hadn't really let myself believe that it would all be okay.

But in the spirit of having something else to worry about, the baby was in a very difficult position to measure, and was measuring very small. It was only measuring 6w4d, and considering I had gotten positive pregnancy tests (both urine and blood) 4 weeks earlier, that is a little alarming. (You don't get a positive test at 2 1/2 weeks - you just don't. Conception occurs at ~2 weeks and implantation takes another 6-12 days then another 2-3 days for a test to become positive.)

So there are 3 possibilities for what may be going on:

1) The way our little bean is snuggled up against the wall of my uterus made it impossible to measure him/her from more than one angle. The u/s tech was not confident in her measurements at all. She said if she could have seen from every angle then she would be comfortable with the measurement, but she just wasn't okay with a measurement that far behind based on what she could measure.

2) Our little one got off to a slow start. Not unheard of at all. It used to be believed that in very early pregnancy all embryos grew at the same rate. Now it seems that theory is a little less black and white and there can be variability in the rates of development even during early pregnancy.

3) Our little one is not growing appropriately.

So what does all of this mean? I go back on November 8th for another ultrasound to find out. Even if our little bean is still nestled in an awkward position, we should be able to determine if there has been appropriate growth in the last week. If we can rule out #3, then honestly I don't really care whether the explanation is #1 or #2.

If the answer is #1, then I'm not sure what we do if we can't get a good measurement again this week. If the answer is #2 then we adjust my due date, and instead of being 8 weeks pregnant today I'm only 7 weeks pregnant.

Here's the breakout of my possible due dates:

Based on my last menstrual period: 6/14/11
Based on when I know I ovulated: 6/17/11
Based on current u/s measurements: 6/21/11

So until Tuesday, I am just super thankful that we seem to have a living child inside of me and I hope that we see good growth when we go in!!!