Chor.ionic B.ump

The blob has a name. Not that it matters because nobody has ever heard of or seen one, including the first perinatologist we saw this week. The second perinatologist had seen 2 others in his 30 year career.
There has been one journal article published about the blob, and the abstract was pretty discouraging with a live birth rate of 43%. However, I bought the full text of the article and found that most of those pregnancies ended before a heartbeat was seen on u/s. The cause and effect is unclear. The study says a heartbeat is a good prognostic sign for the pregnancy, but in the study there were 2 cases of second trimester fetal demise (at 17 and 18 weeks)
The study is tiny (N of 15) but its the only one out there. The peri's say they've read the same one and its all anyone really has to go by.

I'm 9 weeks 2 days today. Now they're saying that if I get to 12-14 weeks with no significant bleeding that we should be ok. I'm concerned about what happens when the placenta becomes fully functional. I asked Carleton (Peri #2 looks just like Carleton from The Fresh Prince, but sadly would not do the Carleton dance for us) what he thought would happen, and he told me didn't know but he felt optimistic.

If anyone's interested, I can post pictures of the evolution of the blob, though I don't have the 6 week picture because I was so convinced it was over that I didn't want a picture. I hesitate because though there is a blob in the picture, there is also a baby and this is an infertility blog, afterall.

Interestingly, in the journal article, there were MRI images of the blob that were taken because of suspicion of a molar pregnancy. Apparently they are very similar in appearance in the early stages.


This limbo place is hard. I'm starting to feel ready to commit to being pregnant, but its scary. We made appointments to start interviewing midwives, which can either be seen as tempting fate or as thinking positively. At this point, I think its too late to try to stay disconnected. We've seen and heard the baby too many times. If we lose it now, it will be a real loss, not just a bump in the road (pun not intended)

Next appointment is in 2 weeks for another "viability scan", doesn't that term inspire confidence?!?

Maybe, maybe not

The blob hasn't gotten very much bigger, according to yesterday's u/s, but it hasn't gotten any smaller either. Fetus is growing appropriately. Moles grow are very aggressive and grow very quickly, so now they say its fairly unlikely thats what the blob is.

Now they're calling it an abnormal placenta. It was clear yesterday that the blob is the placenta (which we always assumed anyway, because thats what a partial mole is- basically a horribly f'ed up placenta), because we saw the cord attached to it. It kind of looks like a placenta now too, except 10 times larger than it should be at this point. There appears to be some bleeding near it, but I'm not spotting so it perhaps its only a small amount and is being reabsorbed.

The peri doesn't want to do another u/s for 3-4 weeks, unless there is spotting or some other indication to do one sooner. By 18 weeks (which might as well be 18 years) we should know for sure if the blob has developed into a normal placenta.

I have tiny, tiny amount of hope that there will be a baby at the end of this, which is nice since I feel like total ass all day long. Mostly I'm just glad that they don't think its a mole, because the implications of that particular complication can go on for years.

Thank you all so much for the love and good thoughts. They mean more to me than I can say.