Cerclage followup appointment 14 weeks

Well today I went for my follow up appointment for my cerclage I had placed last week due to a shortening cervix. My husband picked me up after leaving work and we made our way to the afternoon visit. I had to laugh because as I walked out the door, my dog looked at me with the saddest eyes as if to say, "Is it true? Are you really leaving me?" I hadn't really left the house in a week following my surgery so I think she got used to me being a permanent fixture on the couch!

As always, my OB's office was packed. But shortly after we arrived we were called back for the ultrasound. I wonder if the nice tech who I always have heard my heart pounding, because it sounded like the Kentucky Derby was being held in there! Once the transvaginal ultrasound was underway I began to relax a little bit because the tech always turns the sound on right away. I zoned out hearing the thump thump thump of Spot's little heartbeat, entrancing me into a happy bliss. It measured a beautiful 154 bpm. When the verdict was in, we couldn't determine the gender AGAIN because Spot had their legs firmly closed! To be honest, at this point in time, I could care less. As long as we still are blessed enough to even have our little Spot - obsessing about the gender almost seems silly. Things like that just don't seem so important anymore. We didn't get too many fabulous shots of Spot because the star of the show was not the baby, but instead my cervix and the cerclage sewed in it. Just like growing up, in school the trouble makers get all the attention! Here's a couple we got though. We actually got more pictures and DVD time of my cervix than Spot. In the last one, the little white flecks in the picture near the middle and going upward are all the sutures sites of the cerclage. I guess they do about 20+ stitches just to hold things tight.





I knew we would get a better description of things from my OB, but when I asked the tech how my cervix looked she said "things seem to be holding up." Well, that's got to be good I thought. Next, we hopped into the room next door and waited for my OB. Once he met with us, he did an exam to take a closer up look at the cerclage and cervix. He said that he really likes to keep a close eye on the actual surgical site the first few weeks following placement for any signs of infection or loosening. Infection can occur even under good circumstances because technically they have left a foreign object in a site that directly opens to the baby. If that occurred then chorioamniotitis sets in and causes miscarriage. So I can understand why they're so particular about how things look.

The good news was that the surgical site looked great, no sign of infection. My OB must had been really happy with that because he looked at my husband sitting in the chair and said, "Do you want to see what a cerclage looks like?" My husband immediately turned two shades whiter and whispered, "Uh, no but thanks." My OB obviously knows me well, but not my husband! My husband, being the quiet engineer type has no interest in medical things (especially when they involve his wife's privates) and almost passes out at the sight of a drop of blood. My OB glanced up at me and winked, maybe he did know what my husband would say :-)

When discussing my current cervical length, my OB said that things were still short - but not any worse. He said that there was no sign of any funneling on ultrasound, which would had be a VERY bad indication. Whew! While hearing the words, "still short" doesn't give me warm fuzzies, it doesn't send me clambering up the wall either. I am not happy, I am not sad. I just am - if that makes any sense at all. When then I asked my OB "so now what does this mean, and what do we do now?" He calmly said, "all we can do is wait and see. Things can kind of go either way following seeing this, so we just wait." So I guess that's what we do. We wait.