The Lord has blessed me with a "normal" pregnancy this time - hallelujah! With Carter and Bennett, I was sick all day long throwing up my guts until 28 and 20 weeks respectively. This time, my morning sickness has greatly diminished with the onset of the second trimester - as the doctor always promised before but never delivered! Wow, it really DOES happen for some people! I still get nauseous and sometimes sick in the evenings, but that's NOTHING. I'm more tired in general - but that's to be expected growing a human being, working full time, and chasing after two crazy boys!!
Last week, I went for my first trimester screening and nuchal translucency ultrasound and to meet with my perinatologist. The purpose of the screening is to assess the baby's risk for having Downs Syndrome or a Trisomy. For the first part of the test, they measure the nuchal fold - the pocket of fluid behind the baby's neck. In general, they want to see this under 2.5 mm, and Baby 3.0's nuchal fold was measuring about 2.0 mm, which is really good! The spinal cord looked great (no evidence of spina bifida or other spinal cord defect)! And they also look for the presence of a nasal bone. Baby sure gave the tech a run for her money trying to get the right shot to make sure the nasal bone was present, but she did finally get it and the nasal bone was there!!
The second half of the screening is a blood test. Based on the blood test, my risk for Downs was lowered from 1:740 (based on my age) to less than 1:10,000, which is the lowest possible number!!! My risk for a Trisomy was lowered from 1:1400 (based on my age) to less than 10,000 as well. We would not terminate the pregnancy regardless, but we believe in being informed and prepared if we were to be faced with that challenge. We are VERY happy that our baby appears to be perfectly healthy thus far!
And, of course, we got some nice purdy pictures to hang on the fridge:
In case its not as obvious to you as it is to me, above you are looking at two profile pictures of the baby with the head on the right looking upward.
Here, you can see in the photo on the left, the butt, and part of an arm and hand. The photo on the right is the hand, which the tech said is the clearest picture of a hand she's ever seen at this early stage in pregnancy!Turns out, Baby 3.0 is actually measuring in the 95th percentile for crown to rump length! So, it may be a little bigger than most 13.5 weekers are! The tech said the baby was about 4 inches long and weighed 2 ounces!
The tech also took a little peek-see between the legs and saw parts that look very distinctly female :) She said would say with 95% certainty that we're having a GIRL - but....its still early. So, we're condemned to suffer and wait until our next ultrasound on July 29th to see for sure. I'm so excited at the possibility of a little girl, but I'm also bracing myself for the possibility that the tech will say "oh well there is the penis - it must have been hiding." He he he.
That's all for now folks! I will try to update this blog more frequently! Especially now that I've seemingly rejoined the land of the living!
