We visited my OB for genetic counseling and the Nuchal Translucency scan. We met with the geneticist first to go over all of the possible conditions we could have passed on to our baby and determine what tests we want to do. Luckily neither of us is aware of any genetic issues within our families, and our ancestors come from different parts of the world, so that should lower our risk some. In going over my labs from PRC, we learned that I've already been tested for being a carrier of Cystic Fibrosis (negative) and had sufficient chromosome testing to rule out 90% of chromosome issues. We decided to just test me for Fragile X at the moment since that can cause high FSH.
Chad hasn't had any testing done yet, so in light of our history of recurrent pregnancy loss, we were advised to do chromosome testing on him since it could offer another explanation for all of the losses if something is detected.
After meeting with the geneticist, we moved to the ultrasound room for the NT scan. I was super anxious about this test since an abnormal results frequently points to birth defects... I tossed and turned all night last night and was really nauseous all morning. I hope someday I'll be able to accept that everything really is okay and I don't need to be nervous before ultrasounds... :-/
Anyway, all the worrying was for naught as the baby appears to be totally normal! First, Dr. P. showed us the baby's head and pointed out that the nasal bone is, indeed, present. Next, she checked the heartbeat, which was at 160 bpm. Then she got a couple of shots of the back of the neck where the pocket of nuchal fluid is located. That measured 1.35mm, which is great! Anything under 3mm is normal. It was a bit difficult to get a clear picture of the baby as a whole since I have a fibroid in the way and my uterus is tilted towards the back, Eventually, she switched to a transvaginal probe to look for the SCH. It's still hanging around, but down to 1.5cm from around 2.5cm last week.
 |
| Pictures are pretty fuzzy this week. It looked way cuter in person! |
We asked if she could tell anything about the gender this week. Of course the little guy was being shy and had its umbilical cord hiding the goods! One shot might have looked like a penis, but it could just have easily been the umbilicus. The baby was sleeping initially, so Dr. P. knocked on my belly a bunch of times to wake it up! Pretty funny since after that it started moving all around (but not enough to move the umbilical cord out of the way). Maybe we'll have better luck at my next appointment in 2 weeks.
We should get the bloodwork results back in 1 - 2 weeks. At that point we will also get a risk assessment for the likelihood of Down's and Trisomy 18. At the moment, our thinking is that if the risk is around the same as the risk for miscarriage from an amnio (around 1:300), then we will go ahead and plan to do an amnio. My age related risk is around the same, so we'll see how much that changes based on today's tests.
In other news, since my SCH is shrinking, Dr. P. said most likely I'll be able to fly to Seattle in a few weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment