Friday, February 12, 2010

Gray

This baby is going to make me completely gray by the time she is born. I'll look like that older mother that others will envy for my energy of a 30 year old.

When I got to work yesterday, the secretary told me that I had received a phone call and she told them I'd be in at 3. I asked if it was Ros, she said it was someone from Maternal Fetal Health. My heart skipped a beat as my mind started racing as to why in the hell would they call me at work. Something must be wrong with the baby, is obviously the first thing that popped into my head since we had our ultrasound the day earlier. So I went to my assignment and waited for them to call back.

At 3:15 they did. When I answered the phone it was the radiologist who reviewed my ultrasound. She proceeded to tell me that Nugget has a small choroid plexus cyst in her brain. Obviously curious as to what the heck that means, she told me that it was usually nothing, a benign finding, but could sometimes be an indicator for trisomy 18. For all of you who aren't familiar with devastating genetic disorders, trisomy 18 is a really bad one, incompatible with life. After a mini panic attack, she explained to me that since everything else looked normal, I shouldn't worry. I was more relieved when I remembered that we had our 12 week nuchal translucency integrated screen which tests for markers for Downs Syndrome and other trisomy conditions, including trisomy 18. Our results were completely normal. I think my ratio for Downs Syndrome was like 1:617, which is a really good ratio to have.

Of course as soon as I got off the phone with her I called Ros at work. I told her not to panic but they found this abnormality on Nuggets ultrasound. At first she was a little nervous but 2 seconds later she Googled the cyst and was relieved. I looked up my medical record while I was at work (another benefit to my job) and saw my offical ultrasound report. It stated the cyst was small and that there were no other abnormal findings although they couldn't rule out clenched fists which can also be an indicator. We can rule out the clenched fists as we have a picture of Nugget high fiving the screen. I know she has 5 fingers on her left hand.

It's amazing how much you love and care about this little being inside of you before they are even born. If we worry this much before she even gets here, how are we going to be once she's here? I don't want to be one of those overprotective, hypochondriac parents I see on a daily basis who bring their kid to the ER at the first sign of a snot bubble. I don't think we'll be those kind of parents, at least I hope we won't.

On a better note, Nugget weighed in at a whopping 12 ounces at the ultrasound. Someone at work last night dubbed her Bud Light. So let's cheers to a healthy Bud Light.

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad everything looks okay! You're right, every little thing causes you to panic. It's good practice for life after the arrival, when you'll be frantically googling every weird thing your baby does.

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