So I finally figured out that this crazy rash is not at all one of the pregnancy rashes I thought it was. I feel kinda dumb now! lol Like the derm said, it IS in fact something I'm allergic to: Poison oak. Fun!! I remembered that I had weeded my flower bed last week for the first time in months and there were some new plants in there that I did plant of course and I didn't know what they were. I just assumed it was from the nuts that fall from my tree taking root and growing. Ha! Nope. Lovely old poison oak. What clued me in is after having the rash for a while some places started to take the shape of straight lines which I thought was pretty odd. So I looked it up and found that this is very typical for poison ivy or oak rashes. Then they started blistering and weeping. Yep, had to be one or the other. After closely examining a couple of stray plants that I missed in my flower bed, sure enough it's poison oak. But I've never had a poison oak or ivy rash in my life. Turns out some people are only allergic to specific things when they are preggo! My mom said she had the same happen to her while pregnant and she's never been allergic to those plants at any other time in her life. Weird! And so my luck! This stuff is miserable and just seems to get more painful, oozy and blistery every day. Wondering how long this stuff lasts!?? I ditched the hydrocortisone because it wasn't really helping and got some Ivarest. It's a combo of benedryl, calamine, and alcohol. It works fairly well but I'm trying not to use it too much. So I just gotta wait it out. It sucks!!
On other fronts, I had my 11 week ob visit on Wednesday the 26th. I got another ultrasound (yay!) which I wasn't expecting. They said it would be easier to hear the heart tones through u/s than with the doppler. Fine with me! I got my favorite u/s tech who is so funny and so nice and spent quite a while letting us watch our little one jump around. He/she is a mover and shaker already! She couldn't hardly get the baby to be still long enough to get a good picture for us. But we did get a few and they are precious! The heartrate was a whopping 182 bpm so we're thinking girl!! I know it's an old wives tale but it's still fun to guess. The only not so good news that we got is that the bladder was slightly enlarged. My doc didn't sound super concerned (but then again he never does) but he sent over the info to the perinatologist for them to check that out when I go to check on the blood clotting stuff. So of course, I consulted "Dr. Google" and am now officially terrified. Of course I know that what's on the internet is usually all the bad cases where things went terribly wrong and the good stories where this resolved itself just don't get talked about. What I found was that when the bladder is enlarged there is usually an obstruction somewhere that is preventing the passing of urine. Sometimes there is a chromosomal abnormality to blame and the baby has even more problems than just the bladder. Sometimes it resolves itself within a couple of weeks and sometimes it does not. If it does not, later on during the pregnancy (if the baby does not die) a shunt has to be placed in the baby's bladder to allow urine to be expelled. Then once the baby is born, surgery is performed to clear the obstruction or deal with whatever it is that is wrong. The problem with the shunt procedure is that sometimes it's too hard to place and the surgery is unsuccessful. If the bladder expands too fast, fluid around the baby diminishes which causes death or if the bladder gets too large it will fill up the abdominal and chest cavity crushing the heart. I know, HORRIFYING scenarios to even think about! But in the successful shunt placement, the baby is able to be delivered (often prematurely) and the problem dealt with after birth. ....I am so not prepared for all this. My husband spent all day trying to reassure me that everything will be fine and that we shouldn't borrow trouble if we don't know yet that anything is wrong. Why oh why do I always have to look up EVERYTHING? I'm a glutton for punishment apparently. So I'm praying, my whole family is praying, we are all just holding on and hoping that this is nothing. All we can do is wait. My perinatologist's office said I could come in a week early so that is what I will do. My appt is on Wed, Oct. 3. I know God is bigger than any problem we might face and is able to get us through it. But I can't help being scared.
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