More pictures of the little one

We went back today for a Fetal Echocardiogram. Pretty much everything looks good. And apparently all babies have holes in their hearts. They need them in utero, and then they usually heal when born. Anyway, there is some slight "leaking" as the blood flows between two of the chambers of the heart, but the doctor said it's nothing to worry about; it's not something that concerns him. This was wonderful news! Just to be safe, we go back in another 4 weeks to get another look. Oh, and the heart is now about the size of a quarter. Definitely a lot bigger than a few weeks ago when it was the size of the tip of your pinkie.

And then after the fetal echo, they did a very quick ultrasound. I liked one of the profile pictures so I asked if we could have it, and then she kept printing more. She printed out 8 for us- here are my favorite three. But we were shocked. In the past we've only walked out with one or two pictures. I think the one with the feet is my favorite of all of them.

More Ultrasound photos

For those of you keeping track, yes, I had a second ultrasound today. Why? Well at the last one they discovered that the head was measuring small. So what's the big deal? Doesn't that make delivery easier? It turns out it's an indicator of some other, potentially serious, issues. So my doctor said, it's probably nothing, but she recommended that we go for another ultrasound.

The tech asked why we were there, and we told her. She did her thing, but she also seemed to be looking at the heart a lot. She looked at other areas as well, so we didn't think about it too much. And she seemed much more personable pointing things out to us. And she even did a 3D image for us. So cool to actually see what Baby could actually look like.

Then the tech went to share her results with a doctor. The doctor came in. Why are you here? Again, we mentioned the head. She said the head really didn't look bad. It was still measuring small in one measurement, but the overall measurement was normal so she wasn't concerned. However...

The tech thought she had seen a hole in the outer wall of the heart. Really? She had told us that the heart was the size of the tip of our pinky. And you can see a hole on that? Not only were there the heart concerns, but there also was an issue with the feet. Instead of being flat or curving downward, they were curving upward. Rocker feet. And finally, Baby kept clenching his/her hands. This was an indicator of some brain issues. So all of these things combined made them a bit concerned.

They thought that all of these things could mean a genetic abnormality. In particular they are concerned about Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 18, and Trisomy 13. They encouraged an amniocentesis. Based on the results of this they will be able to determine if Baby has one of these three (results in a day or two) or if it's a different genetic anomaly (results in about 2 weeks).

So at this point, we don't know. It could be something, it could be nothing. And if there is no genetic anomaly, there's still that issue with the heart. So please keep us in your thoughts and prayers over the next few days.

Ultrasound photos

So last Tuesday we got a peek at the little alien growing inside of me. Here it is- both photos with its hand in front of its face. Wish we had gotten the full profile shot, but this is better than nothing.