First Trimester Screening

Over the last few days I started to get that "full of dread" feeling back. I have no idea why because the last couple of days I have felt absolutely miserable (not throwing up, but felt like it was going to happen any second), so it wasn't because I was feeling better this time. Maybe it's because we expected to see what resembled a baby this time, and I was worried we'd see less than that, no heartbeat, and have to deal with that while we have Jack excitedly waiting to see his baby. And last night when I as laying really still, no joke, and I realize it's probably all in my head, I swear I felt this baby move. It was right where my uterus is, a few inches below my belly button, and it was not off to the sides. I swear I felt it, I know it's probably in my head, but I really thought it was the baby. I just laid there and thanked God for the reassurance.

Well, as we pull into our parking spot today, Jack asks if they're going to take the baby out for him to see. That was adorable. I explained we were going to be looking at the baby on the screen again, that they wouldn't take the baby out until it was born sometime (hopefully) after Christmas. Now that we had the logistics out of the way, it was time to go see our popsicle and check up on it.

The baby is measuring 12 weeks 1 day which is about 3 days ahead. This is great. Jack was always a little on the smaller side. They said it was about 5cm from crown to rump. Heartrate was 157. It has a nasal bone (which I learned today that the lack of the nasal bone is an indicator for Down's Syndrome), and the fluid behind the neck measured 1.3mm (Jack's was 2.5mm) and normal is less than 3mm. We got to see the baby's brain, stomach and bladder, so all looks normal there, and what I thought was an arm on the second picture is actually the spinal cord (brighter white streak going down the baby's back). I swear it looks like an arm, but she assures me this was a sagittal view (which is basically like if you cut the baby in half, and look at it from that way) and it's not the baby's arm.

And last but not least, the "coming out" picture with Jack holding a picture of his baby brother/sister.

They did look at my ovaries (which were trying to hide, and darn that hurt!), and they did check out the rest of my uterus, and they do still see the subchorionic hematoma. They said it wasn't really big, but hadn't resolved, and that the doc may want more follow up done on it. I'm ok with that if it means I get to see my baby again before 8 more weeks have passed!