Pregnancy Calendar – Week 5

If you are “lucky” enough to score an ultrasound this week, you’ll probably be able to see your baby’s heartbeat. It’s ridiculously exciting, considering it mostly looks like some flickering pixels on a TV with really crappy reception. After seeing the heartbeat, your risk of miscarriage shoots down to 10 to 15%. It’s not as great as getting out of the double-digits (at 10 weeks your risk is only 3%), but still. In the crapshoot of fertility, take the sighs of relief whenever you can get them.

I saw my own little Quasimobryo’s heartbeat on Monday, and pumped my fists in the air and told my husband to get my toddler’s giant melon head out of the way of the screen. My doctor attempted to get a better idea of the baby’s gestational age by measuring the head-to-rump length (which in these early days is more like “head-like-bulge-to-tail-like-tadpole-bottom), but came up with a measurement of only 5 weeks, 6 days.

I’ve decided to go ahead and ignore this age, because 1) it would be very, VERY unlikely to see a strong, obvious heartbeat at that age, 2) ultrasound measurements are very, VERY unreliable, particularly early on, and 3) I don’t want to believe I am going to be pregnant for that many more weeks.