12w5d CVS done

Today I went through with it.  Mike & I met up at the hospital and had the CVS testing completed on the baby.  It did not hurt nearly as bad as I thought it would, but I am still so thankful that he was there holding my hand. Turns out the tear in the placenta had not fully healed itself yet, but we decided to proceed because the risk of loss went from half a percent to about 1%.  It was worth the risk for us to know what was going on in there.  The baby looked great- moving around, great heart rate, great size.  Nothing is indicating that there is anything wrong right now.  But we still just don't know.

The CVS itself lasted about a minute.  They prepped me, draped me in sterile paper, and the ultrasound tech held the wand while the doctor used the needle.  Thought I didn't actually look at the needle, Mike said it was fairly thin but long- it needs to be flexible to collect a villi sample.  I felt a pinch when it went in, then nothing, then a slight cramp as it hit my uterus.   Not so much pain, as my skin was crawling just knowing some foreign object had poked its way through layers of skin, fat and muscle.  Once it was in my uterus, it was like a quick scraping feeling as he collected placenta cells for less than 30 seconds.  Very weird feeling.  Not pain, just pressure and weirdness.  Then, just like that, it was over.  He talked me through the whole thing- the doc was great.  I really liked him.    Though when he took the needle out, I asked Mike "is there something still in my belly"?   There wasn't, but maybe the hole the needle left made me still feel like something was there.  I started to feel better immediately and got dressed.  They confirmed they had a good sample, let me see it, and then we set up to take my blood and Mike's blood for any comparisons that might need to happen with the microarray.

About halfway home from the hospital my genetic counselor called me.  They had forgotten to give me my Rhogam shot before I left!  I'm O negative so any invasive procedure such as CVS needs to be followed up with a shot to ensure if my blood and baby's blood mixes, there are no antibodies created that might treat baby like a foreign object and try to eliminate it.  Very.big.deal.  So i had to run back there to get the shot, and I swear that hurt more than the CVS! It's in your rear and it takes forever because it's a lot of fluid and it BURNS!

Overall, my nightmares did not come true.  It was not as bad as I thought, as of this morning I'm just a little sore but nothing else to note.  Results trickle in over the next week.  This is the last hurdle.  We will know what to do after all this is finished, we will finally know where we stand with this pregnancy.

Oh, and they thought they saw boy parts :)