I'm obviously running a little behind on things, but we had our NT scan on Monday. I swung by the office last Thursday to give a blood sample so they could run a few quick tests and have the results ready by Monday.
Monday came, and we went back for the ultrasound. The nurse was super-nice and took the time to explain everything. Then she put the gel on my stomach (brr! cold!) and Baby Costella popped up on the screen!
He/She was wiggling all over the place, doing some flips and all kinds of crazy. Of course, I found this hilarious and came down with an embarrassing case of the giggles that made it impossible to get a good look for the next 5 minutes. Yikes.
Once I had calmed down a little bit, she started snapping pictures. She even printed a lot of them out for us to take home!!! Here are a few:
It actually looks like a baby! So adorable. She mentioned that the bright white spot was the baby's nasal bone, which is an awesome sign - most babies with Down's Syndrome don't develop a nasal bone (at least not this early). She finished up making the measurements behind the baby's neck for the NT scan, and then the doctor came in. The doctor repeated a few of the pictures the nurse had taken, and also randomly just switched the machine over to 3D and took a few pictures over there! I think they're a little creepy looking, but still pretty cool.
We also got to see the baby's heart in 3D and watched it fill with blood. That was awesome. Heartrate was 169 beats per minute! Still spot on!
This particular doctor also prides himself on "early sex guessing", so we asked him what he thought. His guess was that Baby Costella is a little girl - with 80% confidence. It's still pretty early though, so we shall see! He also is very involved in the diagnosis of spine and heart conditions, and said that from his experience things are looking really good.
After the ultrasound, we met with the genetic counselor on staff and she went over the NT scan results with us. Based on my age, our risk of Down's going into this appointment was 1:850. Based on the results of the scan (presence of nasal bone, ulltrasound measurements, and blood tests results), that risk has dropped to 1:15,000! Similar results for a few of the less-common other genetic disorders. Baby C is looking really healthy!!
Everything else is going great. We're slowly starting to spread the news to close friends and family. The official date the floodgates open will be Feb 1 (I think that date is circled in red on my mom's calendar!). I'm not sure if we'll do an official Facebook announcement or not. That is how I stay connected with most of my cousins, but I'm also just not big about putting personal info on Facebook like that. We'll see.
Here are last week's and this week's belly pictures. I kinda forgot to post last weeks... whoops!
Next appointment is a checkup on Feb 18th. Our next ultrasound is scheduled for April 7th. Team blue or pink? We'll find out then!!
xoxo
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