Medical Stuff Update

On Thursday, we met with the midwife for Snapdragon's 15-week checkup. Everything looked fine. Snapdragon's heartrate was a strong 160 and my uterus measured at a perfectly average 16 centimeters. All of the pregnancy books say that my uterus should be 2 or 3 inches below my belly button at this point, but I am short, so it's actually less than an inch away.

On Friday, we went to the big hospital for an ultrasound with the perinatologist so she could check on my ovarian cyst. The good news: Snapdragon looks perfectly healthy. The bad news: my cyst has gotten slightly bigger. It's about the size of a baseball, which isn't such a huge problem at the moment, but will be a problem as Snapdragon gets bigger and takes up more of the room in my very short abdomen.

So, long story short, I have to have my anatomy scan at the big hospital instead of at the birth center. If my cyst is the same or smaller, they'll let it stay, but if it hits 8cm, the perinatologist wants me to have surgery, which will mean general anesthesia, a 3-inch incision in my abdomen, and 6-8 weeks of bed rest recovery time. Not fun.

I've been reading online and thinking about it for a few days now, and I think that I am inclined to refuse the surgery. The perinatologist assured me that the cyst looks simple and benign and that it does not threaten Snapdragon in any direct way. The major issues are that it could break, which would hurt like hell, or it could get twisted and cut off the blood supply to my ovary. Either of these things would be extremely painful and dangerous in terms of my ovary, but not necessarily bad for Snapdragon. The surgery will definitely be extraordinarily painful as well, so there's no net gain there. I would like to save my ovary if possible, but I'm fairly unexcited about having major abdominal surgery in my second trimester. The doctor told us that they couldn't do laparoscopic surgery during pregnancy, but wasn't very clear on why not.

We'll see. I'll be back at the big hospital in three weeks for the anatomy scan and we'll see if it has grown more. If it's about the same, there will be no talk of surgery, but if it is still growing, I'll need a second opinion.