15 weeks and counting

I've been slightly hesitant about posting here since I got a not so good down syndrome ratio back from the triple screen. Some inner instinct is telling me to keep my distance from this baby. How could I beat the healthy baby lottery a fourth time? I guess I'll know more when the results come in from the second set of bloodwork. I go on September 6th and will hopefully have the results within a couple of days. For now I'll keep this short and sweet.

Great nuchal measurement!

My appointment for the NT scan was scheduled for 10:45am. We, as usual, arrived 10 minutes late but were taken back rather quickly. This u/s we were taken to the back room which has a TV there positioned for the mama-to-be to see very easily. Immediately I could see that the baby had grown much bigger since the last scan. I could clearly see it's arms and legs. A couple seconds later I saw the heart beating away. Phew! At one point the tech held still and we watched the baby jumping around. It was so cute. It kept arching it's back to bounce up off of my uterus. I think this was the first time I really bonded with this baby. I must've been smiling from ear to ear. Before we were done I caught a glimpse of the NT measurement. It was 1.57 (mm I assume). Great! Anything below 3 is considered normal. Dr. Weiners assured us that everything looked good and that the baby was growing right on target for my February 19th due date. Again with that stinkin' due date! I asked him if he recommended cervical length checks. He said yes and said that we would start them at the 18 week anatomy scan. A little blood draw and then I scheduled my next two appointments. One for September 6th (blood draw) and the anatomy scan was scheduled for September 27th. So close yet so far away. Yesterday (Wednesday) I got a call from Patty the nurse with my results. My risk for Trisomy 18 was 1/10,000. Great! My risk for down syndrome was 1/140. Not so great! This isn't a positive result but it is a much greater risk then most women my age get. Again it just gives me something to worry about. I'm hoping at the blood draw on the 6th I'll get more info and it will ease my mind a bit. For now I just pray for a little bit of peace of mind and a healthy little Scooby Snack!

2nd appointment down!

Midwife appointment number 2! I've lost 2 pounds since my last appointment. Not bad. My blood pressure was great. And no urine sample. Yay! Amanda came with us for this visit. I think she wanted some time out of the house. We left the big kids sitting in the waiting room as I usually do when they come. Becca spent a little bit of time chatting with Alexa. She kept telling me just how beautiful she is. We once again went back and forth on when my due date is. The first ultrasound had me due on February 23rd. My calculations (based on our oopsie moment, May 28th) have me due on February 20th. The midwives due date (I have no idea what this is based on) have me due on February 19th. For now I'm sticking with the February 20th due date as that is on a Monday and that makes it easy for me to remember when to change weeks. Becca said "we'll go with that". Not much talk about Scooby Snack. We tried to hear the heartbeat with the doppler but no such luck. That of course put me on high alert. The only other time we couldn't hear the heartbeat at 12 weeks was when I was pregnant with the twins. For now it's just a teeny tiny voice in my head that says something might be wrong. By Monday, the day of my next ultrasound, that voice may be screaming at me and I'll be scared to death to go to my NT scan. My blood tests came back good. I'm not HIV positive, nor do I have any other STD's. Go me! Just joking. There better not have been any or somebody would've had a whole lot of explaining to do. She also told me I am O+ blood type. I have always been pretty sure I was but now I know for sure. Again it came up that I am not immune to Rubella. After I gave birth to Alexa they told me that there was a shortage of the vaccine so I never received it. After this baby is born I will receive the MMR vaccine. At one point we both had a good chuckle about the size of my chart. I guess it had gotten so big that someone decided to retire it and start a new chart for me. With 6 pregnancies, 1 miscarriage, 1 high risk pregnancy with conjoined twins, and 1 pregnancy ending with HELLP and pre-eclampsia I suppose there was a lot to chart. Not this time. I intend for this pregnancy to be completely uncomplicated and of course end with an amazing epidural and a beautiful healthy baby.

Boy or Girl?

I am 12 weeks 1 day. I was hoping that this "all different times of the day on and off" sickness would've turned off like a light switch yesterday but no such luck. For some reason the smell of my upstairs makes me gag to a point of almost throwing up. I think it has to do with the fact that it's so dry up there and there isn't much circulation throughout the day. I keep all the windows closed and maybe I shouldn't. I've resorted to keeping a can of powder fresh air freshener up there to spray when I walk up. It's the weirdest things that really set me off. Yesterday I drank a cup of hot tea and felt sick for at least an hour afterwards. I'm having a hard time eating anything past 4 o'clock. I'm always hungry but don't want to eat anything. This little one is really giving me a run for my money. In so many ways this pregnancy seems a bit more hard on me. My gut instinct is pointing me to think it's a boy. And for the first time ever I really have no preference. Thus far with all of my pregnancies I have preferred one gender over the other and have gotten exactly what I wanted. With this pregnancy everyone is hoping for a boy. A boy would round out the bunch. 2 girls, 2 boys. Girl, boy, girl, boy. Kind of fun. And it might be kind of nice for Alexa to keep some of the attention on her as he would be the youngest girl. Besides, I don't know if I could keep up with making hair bows for three girls. But then I get to thinking and a girl would be a perfect playmate for Alexa. They'd be so close in age throughout life and they'd be able to share so many fun activities and memories. Besides girls are super fun to dress. Either way all I really want is a healthy baby. I visited the Heart Breaking Choice site last night. I don't know what's been pulling me there. Maybe some deeply buried fears. Some thoughts of "Could this happen to me again?!" A scary thought of course as we're all becoming pretty attached to the idea of having another newborn to cuddle come February. My NT scan is coming up too. This scan is when I got a slightly elevated chance of down syndrome when I was pregnant with Alexa. And I remember it sent me into a frenzy of worry. I'm hoping it's smooth sailing and that my blood work comes back with numbers that won't make anyone question the health of this little Scooby Snack.

Cravings

Chocolate covered pretzels. Yummmmmmmmm!!

Great ultrasound

Last blog update I was heading out for my ultrasound at the perinatologist's office. I brought Abby along since I was fairly certain we wouldn't be getting any bad news at this visit. Terrible how that has to be one of my first thoughts but I will never forget how hard it was trying to hold it together for them after receiving the bad news about the twins. The u/s tech wasn't the most friendly tech we've had but she was at least a bit informative if I asked the right questions. We did an abdominal ultrasound and pretty quickly she found the baby. It's always kind of weird to see them at this stage of development. They're starting to look like a real baby but they're still very disproportionate. The baby's head was much bigger then the body, but we did get to see little arm and leg buds wiggling around. I forgot to ask what the baby's heart rate was but I know I saw it beating beautifully. I even saw the placenta which had only started to form in the previous week or so. She did a quick check of my cervical length and then left us there to wait and speak with the doctor. At first I was a bit worried as I had never been left to wait to speak with the doctor with any of my ultrasounds with Alexa. But soon I felt a bit more confident because I didn't think you could really tell if anything was wrong with the baby this early on. What bad news could there have been? He came into the room and quickly left. Everything was fine. I scheduled my NT scan for August 15th. I may be a bit more nervous for that one. For now everything looks great and I'm enjoying the thought of having another snuggle buddy come February.