And the little babe looks good! Actually, both Mike and I (and pretty much everyone else who has seen the photo that we were given) are completely amazed at how this baby is no longer a jellybean, but in 4 weeks time... is a baby. Seriously, there's no "what's that?" needed on this ultrasound picture. Perfect facial features, arms with shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers... legs with all the joints and feet with toes. What an amazing Miracle God works in the creation of a child inside of their mother... I am in awe...
Knowing, too, that the measurements we had done today are often used by families to determine whether they will carry their baby to term- or not- is so hard. The measurement was for the nuchal translucency which is basically the skin on the back of the neck or fatty tissue there. It is an indicator of a chromosomal anomaly and was the only thing we had which said to us that Brianna may have a chromosomal issue. We weren't even thinking Down syndrome (nor were the doctors) when she had it done. Anyway, this test is often the first of 3 done to determine whether or not a family will carry the baby... This, the "Quad" (or is it a quint now?) screening, and then finally an amnio if the family so chooses. Of course we had the screening done today just to give us a better indicator of the overall health of the baby since I am now at a higher risk for having a second child with Ds (VERY SMALL, but higher than someone else that's 27 and hasn't birthed a child w/ Ds). If there had been any indicators we would be checking more on the vital organs to keep an eye out for any difficulties and may decide to deliver at a hospital that has a NICU rather than our local hospital where our other biological kids were born.
This perfect little body, formed fully in the image we have of a baby. Only 12 weeks after beginning the formation (and if we get technical, only about 10 weeks after conception really...)
AMAZING.
I'll try to post the photo later- got to run for now
Hi Meredith!
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear things went well for you today!
Can't wait to see the picture of Cornish #5!
Take care! Hugs!
Meredith,
ReplyDeleteI am so with you on the testing! After our son was born, and I became pregnant with our daughter, I wanted to know whether she had Down syndrome. I was 28 when he was born, 30 when she was born. My odds were 1 in 100 of having another child with down syndrome after our son, simply because our son had it. I wanted to know whether this baby would have down syndrome as well, so I could be prepared, and so we could deliver at a hospital with a NICU since there would be greater likelihood of health issues if our baby had down syndrome.
I don't know why, with odds like 1 in 100, I worried that I would be the 1, but I did. Don't get me wrong, I loved our son more than anything, my husband and I had already decided that we could deal with down syndrome again before we tried to get pregnant, but I really didn't want our child to have to deal with the greater challenges that I knew that Down syndrome would bring.
Congratulations on a good checkup. BTW our son with DS had a good checkup today, too, on his ears--after two sets of tubes the ENT thinks he may finally be outgrowing his tendency toward an ear infection with every cold.
Thanks for keeping us posted!
Aw shucks....I thought for sure you were going to tell us that baby number 2 had appeared on the ultrasound screen :) JUST KIDDING!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that the little bambino looks good and hope that in the next couple of weeks, you'll start feeling a lot better and get that second trimester energy burst!
Meredith,
ReplyDeleteSo glad everything went well with the ultrasound. Can't wait to see the picture! Take care and get some rest.
Love, Mom C
Still just one, huh? LOL ;)
ReplyDelete