It's Not at All Like What You See In the Movies

Friday, December 30, 2011 = Omigosh. So much has happened since my last entry. We had the stressful week of the ultrasound at UNC Women’s Hospital on Tuesday, December 13, 2011. I was so anxious. We first had an appointment to talk with the Genetic Counselor. She was great, very informative and warm. She spoke to us about risks of Down Syndrome and Trisomy 8. Because of our age, me being 37 and Mike being 45, our risks for these are much higher. I was teary eyed in there, but the counselor and Mike were so great. When we went in to do the ultrasound it wasn’t at all what I expected. The room was dark. The ultrasound tech was all business. She wasn’t cold but she wasn’t explaining every measurement that she was making and I was so paranoid about EVERYTHING. When we first saw the baby it was sleeping, all curled up, and I thought it was dead! How dreadful! The tech said, “It’s sleeping.” and she found the heartbeat which put my mind at ease. The heart beat about 165 rpms. It was amazing. Mike really lit up. The tech said she’d measure some other things until the baby wakes up. She measured my ovaries, showed me that my placenta was anterior, which basically means that it is toward the front and the baby is behind it. Then, the baby woke up and it was on it’s tummy, on all fours; it looked like a little squirrel! The tech said that she wouldn’t be able to measure the fluid on the neck (the nuchal translucency) until it was on it’s back. So she went on and measured other things. Finally she had me lift my hips and shimmy back and forth to try and get the squirrel to flip over. It did a little breakdancing move and finally rested on it’s back. This is when I started to panic. The tech measured the neck fluid, over and over and OVER again. I started inwardly freaking out. I knew that if I spoke I would just break down in tears. Mike thankfully asked, “So what kind of measurements are we looking for?” She said that anything over 3 mm would be bad. The measurements she was taking ranged from .5 to .8. So it was looking good. But I was still anxious. Perhaps because the tech wasn’t very talkative. Which she isn’t supposed to be. Then the doctor came in and talked briefly with the tech and then they both left the room. I was on the verge of tears for those 2 minutes that we were left in there. Mike put his hand on my back and asked him to stop because it was making me want to cry. Then the doctor came in and said, “It looks good. Everyone is gone for the day so you can just walk right out.” That’s all. As we walked out and started heading down the escalator I just cried and cried. I told Mike that because the tech wasn’t very expanatory nor warm that I was so paranoid about everything she was doing. I knew everything was going to be o.k. but I had these emotions just build up and I just let them all go. It wasn’t until the following Friday, December 16 that the Genetic Counselor called to give us our results. Just based on my age alone my probability for having a baby with Downs is 1/162, with the ultrasound and blood tests my probability is now 1/3221. For Trisomy my risk based on age alone is 1/276 but with the tests and ultrasound it is 1/5501. The counselor said that I now have lower risks than the average 20 year old. She asked if I still had interest in doing the amniocentesis. I told her no. I think the risk for miscarriage on that alone is 1/400. We will be going back to do another ultrasound in my 19th week to determine the sex. We do think that I am a week behind what I thought. I think that my cycle was off a bit.