Wednesday, June 24, 2009

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.

30 comments:

  1. So glad that everything went well! :) The "very low risk" must have been such a sigh of relief!

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  2. I'm so happy for you, Polly!

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  3. I'm crying tears of gratefulness & joy right now. :) I'm so happy for you guys!!

    ((hugs))

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  4. Look at that beautiful baby! Great news!

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  5. What a perfect appt! Congratulations on once again, blowing through another hurdle.

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  6. Thanks for stopping by and its no big deal (about the misconception) that you hadn't gotten back to me earlier... you are getting busier day by day! :)

    Well, actually I have hyper-stimilated once and my RE has gone low and slow for IUIs... but it seems his approach for IVF is to start out high and then come down depending upon how I respond. I am worried that I might have way too many eggs and might end up with an OHSS. But, touchwood... things have been good with my RE and (at least thus far) I trust him... so lets see how things go.

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  7. YAY!!! I am so glad to hear that your NT scan went well! Yay baby!

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  8. "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?"

    When they did that with my baby it was to measure how much amniotic fluid there is. But I could be wrong.

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  9. That's exactly why they measure those 'empty' areas.

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  10. YAY! You're living the dream!

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  11. You always manage to get me crying too. I am so happy for you Polly! Your Peri's office sounds fantastic.

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  12. This is great news, I'm so happy for you Polly!

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  13. Am crying here for you...tears of happiness...huge hugs, Polly!

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  14. Yay!!! I can't wait to see you and hug you!!! I'm so happy for you both and crying tears joy too.

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  15. Tears of joy for you, Berilac and your beautiful baby!!!! What a profile!!!!!! {{hugs}}

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  16. I am so happy for you guys! that is a great appointment! and a very cooperative baby:-)

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  17. Oh, Polly, I'm crying tears of joy for you and Berilac. It's time to go maternity clothes shopping. Start planning the nursery. Start letting yourself *enjoy* this pregnancy. Hoooooooray!!!

    So, another person already said this, but the question you asked about measuring the empty space was done to measure the amniotic fluid. =)

    Keep up the good news, mommy! Oy... I need a kleenex! You just made my day. XO

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  18. Great news about the appointment. What a relief.

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  19. Sounds wonderful, Polly!! My u/s tech didn't say a word to us, other than to apologize for how hard she had to press to get a decent image. I would have loved to known what she was measuring!

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  20. Amen! Great news, beautiful LIFE!!!

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  21. I have my NT scan on Tuesday, so this was very helpful. Did you go in in advance for the bloodwork? I've heard from a number of people that they haven't gotten results for 7-10 days, and I'm just curious about how long I might have to wait.

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  22. Such great news! Yeah! Continue to pray for you - and ditto on the previous posts - the empty spaces are measured for fluid levels...I had NST every week with high risk so I had those measured quite often!!

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  23. So glad all is going well, sweetie.

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  24. Yay!!!! Wonderful, wonderful. Praise God. I'm so delighted for you!

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  25. That's great news that your appointment went so well!

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  26. Just a quick comment to say that I'm thinking about you.

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