Thursday, November 1, 2012

Today's ultrasound was fun and brought great news!  First, the baby looks great and like a "real" baby now.  This ultrasound was to measure the nuchal thickness or the layer of skin behind the neck.  By combining that measurement with several others and results of blood work done previously they are able to calculate the risk of Trisomy 13, 18 and 21.  Without going into a lot of medical details, my risk of any of those is now 1 in 10,000 or the same as a 20 year old pregnant woman.  Great news!  But to get that nuchal thickness measurement the baby has to be looking straight up so they can see the back of the neck and the nasal bone at the same time.  This little one was not very cooperative so the scan took nearly an hour of watching.  Which of course was fun for me, not so much for the ultrasound tech.  Baby wiggled all over, put his/her hand in front of the face so we couldn't see the facial features clearly, or turned to the side.  I was told to cough, get up and go to the bathroom, she poked at the baby, all to get this one into a good spot.  At one point the baby seemed to take a little nap on his/her side and would not be disturbed for anything.  It was really cute to watch for that long!  But in the end they got the measurements and were able to come back with the good news.   Baby's heart rate was a normal 150.

That fibroid in my cervix is going to require more careful watching so I have another ultrasound in a month, on December 6th.  Fine with me if they want to monitor me more often!  The high-risk OB I saw today said it's much too early to say if that fibroid would be a problem.  But she was very pleased with how great everything looked today.  The placenta is up high in the uterus, far from any of the possibly problematic small fibroids left in the uterine walls.

I see my regular OB on Monday, November 5th.  The other good news this week is that I've officially graduated from the infertility doctor in Colorado.  My labs were great this week off all meds, so my nurse called to say I am completely  in the hands of my local OB.  But she wants me to keep her updated and send pics of the baby when she/he is here.  I will be thrilled to do just that!  

For now, here's the best of the pics from today.  One of the profile, chest and an arm.  The other is just an arm and hand.  If you click the pics they should enlarge.