A Mommy Story

I never turn down a test, it seems. My OB had recommended an Ultrascreen, a genetic screening that combines an ultrasound with a blood test at 11-12 weeks, and I quickly said I’d like to do it. The test checks for genetic abnormalities, including Down’s Syndrome. No, we have no risk factors to worry about, but some of these require no family link. Plus, it gave me the chance to see the fetus again.

This is a test that has to be performed by a specialist, so I had another appt. set up. Luckily, the nurse was gentle and managed to draw my blood on the first try, although she did have to dig a little for the vein. (I have, quite possibly, the worst veins ever.) Then it was on to the ultrasound.

The tech was very nice, and she even warmed up the ultrasound gel and placed towels down to protect my clothing. It felt like a spa service at that point. Then we got to see the baby. We got some great pictures out of it, because for the purposes of the test, they have to get the fetus into a perfect profile in order to measure the length of the back of the neck.

It’s very early of course, the poor kid looks like it has my nose. As you can see, there’s very nice profile there, but the nose does look a little, uh, prominent (it’s easier to see in the other pics). The heartbeat was strong at 160 beats per minute. We could make out fingers and toes, too, although right now the legs look more like frog legs than baby legs.

As we’ve noticed before, this kid still seems to be laid back. When we saw Cordy at 11 weeks, she was a hyper little thing, bouncing around all over the place as if she was dancing. This one just hung out, occasionally kicking his/her legs once or twice to push off and then slowly float back down again. The tech and I got a laugh out of that – all I could think of at that point was Squirt, the sea turtle, from Finding Nemo. Putting out a little effort just to ride the wave back down. Dude, how cool.

Everything looked good on the ultrasound, and we’ll have the complete results sometime next week.