Results!

Okay, so yesterday was a VERY good day, in spite of pouring rain the entire drive to the specialist's office and also taking the wrong exit and ending up on the completely wrong side of town. Because! No clots! The sonographer did the longest, most thorough ultrasound EVER and assured us that the dark spots looked like "venous lakes" which are pooling of blood or fluid and, while they should be monitored, are almost always nothing. In occasional cases they can lead to fetal growth restriction, so the doctor recommended that my OB here in town continue to check the baby each month with ultrasound to make sure he's still growing well, but other than that, business as usual!

Obviously, we are extremely relieved. The doctor and sonographer both were all breezy about it, and both basically said, "Oh, this is really not that uncommon- we see it a lot here because sometimes regular OB's and sonographers don't recognize them or their machines aren't high enough resolution to tell the difference between these and more serious problems. But it's almost definitely nothing to worry about!" So yeah, big sigh of relief. I feel like I'm out of mental limbo and can start planning for this real, live, baby boy (weighing in at fifteen ounces and currently sitting in a breech position on my bladder, in case anyone's interested) to be here in about four months.

I still have to TAKE IT EASY, though. Bah. I was having tons of really painful Braxton Hicks during the drive and even throughout the ultrasound, so the doctor had the sonographer measure my cervix, and it was RIGHT at the cusp of still being long enough. Like, anything under thirty mm they worry about, and mine was exactly thirty. So, you know, we should definitely be trying to keep the contracting to a minimum. Guess I'll just have to delegate anything strenuous to other people! Darn!