Another Bump is to the Hump! and other exciting tales...

Well friends, here we are! We made it to 20 weeks! "What!?" you ask! "Half way already?" Yup I sure am! and yes, that is my belly button poking out just incase you were wondering.

I'm feeling pretty good. I can still sleep on my stomach, only throw up like 2 times a week, can still wear normal pants, and the giant pizza that was my face at the beginning of this pregnancy is finally starting to clear up! The only blah I am feeling is that I'm still sooooo tired. (it might have something to do with 2 kids ages 3 and under) My house looks like a tornado...pretty much every day. So if you come over unannounced (and probably even if I know you're coming) no judging allowed!

 

We had our big ultrasound on Thursday Feb 13, about a week ago. Here are some pictures of our new little MISTER!

He is obviously a very corporative little boy. Not to mention obviously a boy in general. 

Might we get our first thumb sucker with this one?? Maybe!



Conner was, as you can imagine, stoked to be getting a little brother. Sophie had no clue what was going on and therefore didn't care and just sat there like the good little girl she is and ate her goldfish. The tech left to get the Doc to tell us the results of the ultrasound. We waited for like 25 minutes for Mr. Doc to come in and see us, all the while trying to entertain 2 little kids in a small room full of really exciting things they couldn't touch. Lucky for me I was laying on the bed/table thing covered in goop and couldn't really move so Rusty got the brunt of it.

As the minutes ticked by I started thinking that  the Dr was either really busy, really slow, or heaven forbid, something was wrong.  Finally Doc came in. We talked about how we were having a boy and were excited, blah de blah, everything is fine, when the doc got serious and said, "Well, structurally everything is fine with your baby." Oh. Well that left a big fat "but" hanging in the air.

The main things looked great like his heart, spine, lip, etc. which is fantastic. But he had a few other red flag concerns. Basically this little dude has 3 what they call "Soft Markers" which on their own mean next to nothing, but if there are multiple at the same time it greatly increases the odds that the baby has Down's Syndrome.

Marker #1: his kidney's were dilated. Usually they like them to be no more than 4cm...or mm...or something. Anyway, one was 4.something and the other was a whopping 7.1. Usually clears us by the time baby grows and is born, but as I said before, if found with other markers could be cause for concern.

Marker #2: He has what is called a choroid plexus cyst. AKA a cyst (sack of fluid) in his brain. That one sounds really scary and weird but Doc said that these are reeeally common. They see them a ton on ultrasounds and they, like the kidney thing, usually clear up on their own. And even if they don't clear up they don't cause any harm. Once again, harmless unless paired with other markers.


I'm not completely sure where the cyst is but it's one of those black dot things in the circle.

 

Marker #3: Sorry no pic for this one but his umbilical cord has only one artery and typical ones have two. Doc said that this usually is harmless. We'd do a few more ultrasounds as the pregnancy progressed to check growth and make sure everything is still ok but mostly this just causes babies to be smaller. Great. Because I totally need help it that department.

With these 3 markers my odds of little guy having Down's Syndrome went from about 1:900 to 1:50. Yikes!

So anyway that was our exciting ultrasound.   I did really good talking to the doctor. Although I could totally feel the shock settling in. I was brave and didn't cry at all, which is amazing because I'm a crier in general and when I'm pregnant, well let's just say I might have been caught crying at a cat food commercial a week ago. Anyway I did so good until we got to the elevators and Rusty asked me how I was. Oh boy...

I cried all the way to dropping C off at preschool, all the way back to my regular Dr's office (I had my reg 20 week apt right after in Layton) I cried during my appointment. My Doc gave me a big hug and told me everything would be ok and really not to worry because even though my odds were down to 1:50 that also translates to only a 2% chance. That helped a little bit but gosh once I start crying it's a little hard to put on the brakes. It's every mother's fear to have something wrong (even if it's just potentially wrong) with their child. I've never had a less than perfect ultrasound an and I didn't know what to do. I felt helpless, and overwhelmed, and honestly just plain scared.

The ultrasound doc had offered us a new blood test we could do that takes the place of and is WAY less invasive than amniocentesis (the one where they stick a giant needle in your stomach and get a sample of baby's DNA) and my doc suggested if it would put my mind at ease we could meet with a genetic councilor back at Mackay Dee hospital (that's where I had my ultrasound) and talk more about it. We decided that we wanted to definitely at least learn more so we called and they could see us in 20 min. Just exactly enough time to drive back to Ogden!  And thankfully C was at preschool at this time. (and thankfully preschool = awesome neighbor who could watch him for an hour longer after it was supposed to end!)

We got to our appointment right smack on time (11:00) and saw the councilor right away. He was the nicest guy ever ever. He explained this new test that is essentially 99.5% accurate called MarteriT21. It is a blood test where the take only my blood and they have found that trace amounts of baby's blood is in mom's and they have come up with a way to separate the two and test the DNA of baby. It's only really been around for about 2 years and the closest place to Utah that has the technology to do it is San Diego. He said that we could do it today if we wanted to but if we wanted to think about it this test can be done at any time in the pregnancy and the only need for rushing is for termination purposes. Which was absolutely NOT an option for us. We knew that we would love this baby NO MATTER WHAT. And be so grateful for any baby we were given. But I'm not a very patient person in things like this and I tend to over analyze everything and I knew that not knowing for sure would eat me up for the next 4 1/2 months. Also, I like to be prepared (I'm kind of like a boy scout) and if our sweet little boy ended up having Down's I wanted to be able to be ready so we could hit the ground running when he was born and give him the best start possible. So I said sign me up! and they drew my blood that day and shipped it off to Cal-i-forn-i-a. He said that it would take about 10 days to get the results back and we were on our way.

By this time I still hadn't called my parents because I was just a big old blubber bucket. Every time I felt like I had stopped crying long enough to call just the thought of calling made me tear up again.I finally got my composure and called them on the way home from the hospital and had to have Rusty explain everything because somehow, 27 years later, moms and dads still make me cry when I'm already sad. That sounds bad. Not cry in a bad way, but it's pretty hard to be brave around them because I know they won't care if I get tears and snot all over them and they'll just want to give me a hug.

Rusty explained everything (twice, since both were at work and I had to call them separately) My mom said she could be here in an hour and a half but I told her I would be fine. Rusty said he could stay home from work but it's Tax season! I didn't want him to get in trouble! So I told him I just needed a nap and I would be fine. So we put on a show for Conner and Soph was sleeping and Rusty left reluctantly to work. I laid down and was totally fine. What is it they say on "The Italian Job"? Fine means "Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and....something that starts with an E. Oh, Emotional!" Yup, I was FINE all right. I cried for almost 2 hours before I called my momma back to see if her offer to come was still good. An hour and a half later my mom, dad, and big little brother (he's 5 years younger but like a foot taller than me) came bearing gifts of popcorn, Oreos, and hugs and later took me to lovely Café Rio for dinner. Those 4 things can make anything better.

From then on out it was a waiting game. Every day got a little bit better. I thought more about the 98% that baby boy wouldn't have Down's than 2% that he would. But I still didn't let myself get my hopes completely up incase we were in the 2%. Through prayers and blessings I knew that everything would be ok. I just wasn't sure if "ok" meant that the baby would be fine (the real fine, not "The Italian Job" fine) or if it meant that the baby would have chromosome abnormalities but we would be able to handle it.

Although I felt everything would be ok, I was still a ball of nerves while I waited for my 10 days to be up. Gosh if I was this crazy and only had to wait 10 days there was no way I could go the rest of the pregnancy at all without knowing! By this point I would have taken any result, I just wanted to get the heck out of limbo!

So you can only imagine my relief when on Wed. Feb. 19, only 6 days after my blood draw, (the longest 6 days of my life, I might add) my phone rang at 5:30pm and it was the genetic councilor calling saying "I have good news for you!" This little guy's blood work came back negative for any chromosome disorders and therefore has only a .5% (they have to have their margin of error on the test) of having Down's! (or Edward's and one other one I can't remember...) Most likely this baby is going to be perfectly healthy which is music to any mothers (especially this mothers) ears!


The end...that was really long!  I didn't mean for it to be so giant! If you made it to the end, YOU my friend are a true friend!

We are very excited for this little boy to come into our family! While we would have loved him with all our hearts no matter the test results, I would be lying if I said I wasn't so grateful that he (more than likely) will be a healthy bouncing little boy! I almost said that I'm also so grateful for technology, but then I realized that it was technology that got us into this crazy medical goose chase in the first place...but actually, I still am. Because if the results would have been the other way around I would have been so thankful for the heads up!

The End (for real)