The NT Scan: A cry of relief

I am so pleased to share that yesterday's NT scan went great! Berilac and I have taken some sighs of relief ... and not to mention, shed a few tears. What a day, what a big day.

At about noon yesterday my mom called, a tad frustrated and concerned that I hadn't called her with the NT results yet!! And then I reminded her that the appointment wasn't for another four hours ... we had to wait until 4:30 in the afternoon! So not only was I on pins and needles the whole day, but it sounds like others were too.

I'm not exactly sure how I got any sleep the night before or made it through the entire day without having a heart attack, but as the time drew closer my attention span moved further and further away. Berilac sped up to my work at 4PM to pick me up for the appointment and it wasn't until then that I realized I had forgotten my paperwork for the appointment ... POLLY!!!! ... I was pretty mad at myself, I had been all anal about making sure I had TWO copies of everything I needed and of course I don't remember either of them. ARGH!

We arrive to the hospital to find that there's a ... $6/hour parking fee ... umm, what? That ain't cool. We got it validated because we had an appointment, but we realized our poor family would have to be paying this fee when the baby is born, come December, in order to visit us ... so not cool! But, the saving grace is that they do have valet parking ... WHAT? And no, I'm not delivering in Beverly Hills ... good grief people!

This office had obviously done this work before ... they were like a well oiled machine. When we walked up to the counter they were expecting me and had my paperwork all ready to go! I had partially filled my bladder (as I'm no novice to this full bladder ultrasound experience!) and waited in the EMPTY waiting room. We were called back in minutes. (It's no wonder they make you pay for parking ... this place is on it!)

The ultrasound tech was a delight. She was an older woman who was sweet and sensitive. She had me lay down on the table and she tilted the whole thing back so that my feet were higher than my head (I guess they are used to uncooperative babies?) she had me scootching all over the table to get in just the right position. When she was squirting loads of gel all over my lower tummy I told her that this was our fifth pregnancy but our first living child, I asked her if she wouldn't mind establishing the heartbeat first. She gave a compassionate smile and responded with "of course."

The ultrasound started and immediately we saw a wiggling, back arching, squirming little baby with a regular heartbeat. The image was AMAZING - we could see EVERYTHING! The ultrasound tech told us what we were looking at with each shot: the heart and it's chambers, the entire spine, the brain and everything they expect to see inside the skull, the rib cage, the fingers and toes, the face and the profile.

She took lots of measurements too: the baby's size, my cervix length, and the nuchal fold. The baby was (as usual) measuring a day ahead, my cervix was nice and long and the nuchal fold came out exactly as it should. There was one point in which she took a picture of the empty uterine area above the kid's head and a second picture of the empty area below the kids feet - anybody know why they do that? We asked about the placental placement - I was curious if we had an anterior placenta - which would prohibit feeling the baby's kicks early. The tech told us that the placenta is so large at this point, it's practically everywhere! Then she showed us how it was wrapped from the front to the back.

When she was done the Perinatologist entered the room and retook the nuchal fold measurement and compared it to the tech's measurement - they were equal, the Peri was happy. They told us that our appointment went so quickly because we had the most cooperative baby of the day! Thank you Lord for a wiggling, happy, cooperative baby ... which helped to ease my nerves!

When she was done I was allowed to make an escape to the restroom and we were escorted to the hallway to learn the combined results of the blood test and the scan. Within minutes the Peri came out and told us our results: we are "very low risk" ... and we were happy. Immediately I started crying and Berilac held me while he chuckled a little and asked why I was crying - I told him they were tears of gratefulness and joy.