Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails

Last week we received an alarming call that some of my bloodwork turned up some things that the doctor was concerned about. They scheduled me to see a genetic counselor which sounds scary, but really it turned out to be not such a big deal.

The bloodwork that was giving concerns was a screening test called the quad scan. Basically it detects the levels of hormones caused by pregnancy. Some hormones are found in either lesser or greater quantities in pregnancies of infants with certain genetic disorders, and the doctors can use this information to give a probability of these disorders occurring in this pregnancy. Basically, they look at all my information and spit out a ratio based on a simple bell curve. The scan was showing a 1 in 140 chance of the baby having downs syndrome. This sounds more alarming than it actually is, and the risk of harming the baby with additional testing is actually almost equal to the risk of the baby having downs. We chose to keep the probability in mind and stay closely monitored by our OB rather than do any further invasive testing.

That was our scare of the week. But with it came a silver lining. There are several "red flags" for downs that can be seen via ultrasound: enlarged kidneys, enlarged heart, etc. So we had a level two high def. ultrasound. None of the red flags were spotted, which just strengthened my stance on not having further invasive testing. The ultrasound tech turned out to a parent of one of the toddlers I care for at the preschool! It was nice having someone I know, because it didn't seem as mechanical, and I think I relaxed a little better. The baby was very active, and moved all over the place! Not at all shy, the first thing we saw without even trying was......

HIS boy parts! Yes, the "curse" of Pappy Bill is still going strong. This will be the seventh baby born in the family since he yearned so hard for a grandson, and it will be the seventh boy! So much for Mommy intuition! I am very happy about having a son, but not as happy about having to re-design my nursery (it was painted the perfect shade of purple when Daryl bought the house...) I guess that is what happens when you pick out nursery decorations before truly knowing the gender- next time I will NOT just go by my hunch! (I had picked out a lavender butterfly and dragonfly motif.... just in case anyone was wondering) I already have a lot of boys things though, and now the nursery will be decorated with the John Lennon line from Carter's (it's discontinued, but worth the effort to hunt down the items) I also thought of doing Charlie Brown and the Peanuts, but I already have half the John Lennon stuff, and Charlie Brown items are so expensive!

Back to the ultrasound, it was really neat because we got to see every little baby part in detail- all the limbs and organs working. He was playing with his hands (very coordinated... he's a genius already!) and we got an adorable picture of that. Our camera battery is dead, and since we don't have a scanner that is the only way for me to get pics on the computer. I will probably add them tomorrow. She printed tons for us!

So while we are a little concerned, we are not hysterical like I was a week ago right after receiving the call. I think it was a good thing to have this testing (and not just because we got an ultrasound two weeks earlier) but I think they need to explain it MUCH better when they offer it, and when they call to tell someone that there are concerns. Part of what made me so upset was that I didn't even know what a "positive" meant. It's scary to be told that something could be wrong with your child and then have no further explanation for a week. I'm glad to know the odds of having a child with downs syndrome, I just wish things had been discussed with me differently.


Oh, and other news from in utero: The movements have gone from light and feathery to kickboxing world championships in my tummy! Last night I couldn't even read my book because he was kicking it so hard I would lose my place on the page! I've also had to stop my evening meditation the last couple of nights because he was just going to wild. I thought I was crazy, but the tech said that with a baby that active it isn't surprising for me to feel movement that strong this early! I'm hoping he has "happy feet" when he comes out, and Daryl thinks he'll be a piano prodigy since he was so involved in his hands. We'll both be wrong and he'll be an ultimate fighting champ or something! Either way, we can say "we knew before you were even born!!"