Thursday, October 27

Tests

Last Wednesday, my doctor sent me into have some screening tests. They screened for some well known abnormalities, like Down syndrome, and for some rare abnormalities, like Trisomy 18, that I had never heard of before and honestly sound scary to me.

One of test involved an ultrasound, so that the doctor could take some measurements. I got lucky and had an indulgent nurse who took the time to make sure I got a couple nice photos to take with me. With all the time it took for the nurse and the doctor to examine everything I got somewhere around twenty minutes to stare in awe at our baby in the womb.


Close up

It’s amazing how much our baby has developed since the ultrasound they did in the doctor’s office last month. He/she looks like a baby now! Plus it was incredible to see all the moving around he/she does. Our baby was in constant motion, arching his/her back, moving an arm, or a leg, and just plain wiggling around. Of course, it’s still too early for me to feel these movements, but I should be able to start feeling the baby move around inside of me sometime in the next few weeks.

The nurse also told me that our baby has a generous amount of amniotic fluid. This is very good because that's what helps keep him/her safe right now. On the day of the ultrasound they measured him/her to be 6 cm long. I’m 13 weeks pregnant now and officially beginning my second trimester. By the time we reach 16 weeks we can expect the baby to double in length to about 12 cm or 5 inches long. I only wish my husband had been able to go, but it was scheduled last minute and he wasn’t able to make it. They do a routine ultrasound at twenty weeks and I know we will make sure he makes it to that one.

I'm happy to report that the blood work and measurements all came up as normal, which significantly reduces the chances that our baby has a chromosomal abnormality or severe birth defect. Also now that we've made it to the second trimester the risk of pregnancy lost is greatly reduced and continues to decrease as each week goes by. I don’t think if I’ll ever really breath a sigh of relief and believe we’ve actually made it, but with each of these little milestones I feel a little more confident.


Click image to see a version with labels.
This picture was taken at the same angle as the close up, it just catches the baby arching it's back.

Oh, for those of you that are wondering, no we still don’t know if it is a boy or a girl. One of our family members has requested to not be told, so even if we do find out I will not be making a blog announcement of it. Sorry. In all honesty, I’m not all that convinced that I want to know ahead of time either, it really doesn’t matter one bit to me. Plus, it’s fun to squabble with my dear husband about the gender. He is convinced it’s a boy and I just have a gut feeling that our little one is a girl. We will all find out eventually.

6 comments:

Bearette said...

I want a girl (if i have kids).

Anyway, congratulations! Very exciting. And it was one of the clearest ultrasounds I've seen.

Do you know my mother had twins in 1965, before ultrasounds...so it was all one big surprise (or two)?

Anvilcloud said...

How wonderful that all is going well for mother and child!

Anonymous said...

This is just wonderful. I have Liam's ultrasound pictures in his baby book. This is, of course, after everyone in the county had a chance to see them!

We didn't find out the gender, either, and I loved keeping it a surprise.

Catez said...

Lora thankyou for showing the ultrasound. it is clear -and yes, your baby has grown a lot since the last one! I'm so pleased for you.

Anonymous said...

Amazing that you can see so much detail and movements. It makes the baby that much more real as a distinct person. Amazing.

tapestrygirl said...

i love that you show us these pics lora!