Mommy & Me Update
Yesterday afternoon I had my third baby-related doctor's appointment. I peed in the cup, they stuck me with needles, then they scanned me with the magic wand. The blood they drew was for the checking of my thyroid and something called a "Quad Four" which screens for birth defects, or some such. The magic wand/palm pilot-esque deelio monitored the baby's heartrate and determined it to be a steady 168 beats/min. Which, for those of you scoring at home, is exactly the same as it was one month ago. The nurse/wizard assured me that this strength in the heart beat was a very good sign as most fetal heartrates slow as the baby develops. So, strong heart = Good News.I made my appointments for the Fetal Echocardiogram and the Anomaly Ultrasound this morning. These will happen three weeks from now, and I'm both excited and anxious over these. I know that my doctors are just being cautious and thorough. To be fair, I like them better when they err on the careful side than the capricious, if you know what I mean.
My doc feels that my very minimal conditions of the heart (a very small hole between two chambers due to my heart not completely sealing in utero that amounts to a trace amount of regurgitation, and the very slight weakening of one wall aka aneurysm) which have never and will never actually impact my physical well-being, they are that slight, are still important enough that we need to rule out a congenital heart defect. Hence the need for a Fetal Echo. Still, it is kind of scary.
The anomaly ultrasound just goes hand-in-hand with the fetal echo. Which is pretty cool, because that means we'll know the sex of the baby in three weeks instead of having to wait until week 32. (My doctor's practice makes a habit of doing two ultrasounds - one at the beginning of pregnancy and one at 32 weeks.) Yahoo! However, anything called an "anomaly" can't be good, right?
The next issue my doctor put in front of me is the decision regarding Cord Blood and the stem cells that reside therein: To bank, or Not to Bank. That is the question.
Oh, puked again this morning, for those of you scoring at home. Yes, yes. The baby is winning.
