"experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." -randy pausch

Saturday, October 10, 2009

anterior placenta


baby loinette modeling this spring's latest fashion in obscenely large bows.
oh, and my an anterior placenta.

i have an anterior placenta.
there are two safe places for your placenta to be.
anterior (front) or posterior (back).
the place that you don't want it to be is over your cervix, called Placenta Previa.
at my 12 week appointment Dr. Nielson (bless him) got out his handy Doppler to listen for baby loinette's heartbeat.
i heard nothing as he continued to search.
"i just heard it, but i want to get a better listen for you," he said.
i smiled.
"i would expect that you have an anterior placenta, so we're listening through your skin and an entire placenta to hear the heartbeat. that's why it's so hard to hear." Dr. Nielson says.
par, par, bogie, bogie, par, par (this is what i was thinking. click here if you have no idea what i'm talking about).
"is that bad?" i say.
"no. it just is. it means your baby implanted in the back of your uterus, and the placenta is in the front." he says.
"oh." i reply.
then came my 16 week appointment.
"are you feeling any movement?" Dr. Nielson asks.
"no, and it's freaking me out a little. i had felt brennan by now."
then came our 20 week ultrasound, and what do you know!?
the man knew his stuff!
imagine that;-)
i have a fancy dancy anterior placenta with this baby.
have you ever had an anterior placenta?
well, let me tell you, it's an entirely different thing than a posterior (placenta in the back of the uterus) placenta.
with brennan i felt every movement like it was on the surface of my skin, very early on in my pregnancy.
now, after 21 weeks, i am finally feeling all of these jabs and kicks deep inside, like she's right in the middle of me.
most of the time i don't even notice her moving b/c it feels like one of my organs just moved, not my baby.
i have to be doing very little to realize it's a baby that's moving, not my kidney.
so there you have it, all of your anterior placenta questions answered!
except, what is this i just read about anterior placentas often causing the baby to be posterior?
that doesn't sound exciting.
surely this will be a question for dr. nielson at my next appointment.
along with the glucose test right before. blah.
i picked orange.
has anyone ever tried any other flavor???

13 comments:

Emmy said...

You know after two pregnancies I have no idea where my placenta was :) So I guess it wasn't in a bad place at least.
I have only had the orange also, I didn't know there was a choice.

keri said...

My friend had an anterior placenta. Her baby never turned, so she had to have a C-section. Not saying that is the reason. Just saying.. :)

Stacie said...

Don't know if Lizzie was a.p. but I felt her a lot less than J and she was posterior and VERY hard to get out.

I tried the fruit punch this time. It was WAY better!

Katie said...

My mom's seventh child (my sister Lindsey) was anterior and she said it felt SO weird. You can imagine after feeling six kids kick and squirm, this one felt so different. It really freaked it out. She said she could only really feel Lindsey kick when she took baths, so she took baths quite often to reassure herself. I don't know if Lindsey was posterior, but my mom never had a c-section and never even had a epi, so don't think she was. I know, lots of third-hand info :o)

stacy said...

I had the fruit punch (not a fan of fp) but it was not bad. All I know is next time I hope I don't have a retained placenta. I would prefer a smaller doctor's bill, avoiding anesthesia, surgery, and loosing enough blood you're borderline transfusion. Good luck with the anterior placenta. Hopefully it doesn't affect things in a negative way. Oh and thanks for the educational post ;-)!

Amy said...

So that is what that means! I have one as well, just didn't know what it was, and the difference. Look at you educating me! And that would explain why I have felt this little one a lot less than I felt Keith. Amazing.
Glucose? Call and ask if you can eat a candy bar and half a soda instead. Because I have never had any sign of diabetes and it is not in my family at all, I got the sweets instead of the straight glucose. Tastes a lot better, let me tell you!

Unknown said...

Daxton was posterior...no fun...we will have to talk about that later ;)

Jess said...

you should ask for the Jelly bean glucose test- so much less disgusting. There is also lemon lime, it's like a flat sprite.

FYI- the baby is supposed to present posterior (face down) you don't want anterior (face up) it hurts- a lot.

Meghan said...

I just had my 19 week scan and I have an anterior placenta also.

I was freaking out and trying not to be ungrateful after seeing a perfectly healthy teeny boy in my belly.

I swear the worst thing you can do is read stuff about it online though! You tend to hear alot of horror stories.

I mentioned it to one of my good friends and she was like oh I had that too... don't worry about it!

She gave birth totally natural within 20 minutes of arriving at the hospital, so she's been my inspiration :o)

Macey said...

I had placenta previa with my second pregnancy. It was scary but It moved.

The Wilson Family said...

lemon lime? it was very delicious!

Fiauna said...

I know I haven't been around for a while, but I couldn't forgive myself for missing this one. Congratulations!!!!

Fiauna said...

Okay, now I'm laughing at myself. I should have checked the date of this post before jumping to conclusions. lol