Friday, February 11, 2011

Our Son

I think mostly everyone knows already because I put the info on Facebook, and everyone knows that if you are on FB you are in the "know", but we are having a boy! You were all right - well, almost everyone who guess in my last post about this pregnancy guessed that it was going to be a boy. Your prize? You can hold him when he is born!! Haha!

I was going to blog that information last week, but then we got a call from the doctor the day after the ultrasound. The message went something like this, "...in your unltrasound yesterday we saw a small bright spot on the baby's heart. In the past this bright spot has sometimes been a marker for down syndrome, but it's probably not a big deal because everything else in your ultrasound looked just fine. We just need to have you come in for a level 2 ultrasound to do some more measurements..."

I can't even tell you what was going through my mind when I got that message.

I did a bunch of online research and found out that besides being a marker for down syndrome it could also be something as simple as a calcium deposit that would go away in the 3rd trimester and would be nothing to worry about. It was generally only if the bright spot was accompanied by one or more other signs such as a brain cyst, a large space between the first two toes, a missing nasal bone, bones that weren't measuring in correct proportionate size to other bones, etc.

So we didn't say anything about it. No sense it worrying everyone about something that was potentially nothing, especially since they hadn't found anything else to worry about.

But that doesn't mean that we weren't a little worried.

Turns out, after an almost two hour ultrasound with the most informative ultrasound technician in the world this last Wednesday, the doctor pronounced our son "another variation of normal". Normal except a small calcium deposit on his heart that will go away in the 3rd trimester. Apparently these are becoming so common in ultrasounds that it is not really a marker for down syndrome anymore, but it's hard to convince the entire medical world not to believe something that has been true for 15 years.

Our consolation for our week long of worry was our fabulous technician who decided to practice her 3D and 4D ultrasound skills on our baby. So, for the first time, and probably only time, we got to see one of our babies in 3D. It was awesome.


The pictures aren't super clear, but our technician was literally practicing on us because she doesn't normally do 3D ultrasounds. I told her to go ahead and practice away :) She explained the whole 3D/4D thing to us, it was amazing.

And then of course she printed us about 10 new regular ultrasound photos. She was so nice.



Things we know about our baby:

* He is, as far as ultrasounds are able to determine, perfectly healthy :) Praise God.

* He has some of the longest fingers our technician had ever seen on a 20 week old baby. Like his dad? Yup.

* His second toe is longer than his first big toe, just like his dad.

* He is not as forcefully active (in the womb) as both of his sisters were. He moves around a lot, but he is, so far, a much calmer mover. He doesn't use me as his punching bag...yet. :)


We are so excited to meet him!!

6 comments:

Sara said...

So amazing, Heidi.

Can't wait to receive my prize. :-)

Fauntel said...

He is already beautiful. I wonder when I'll be able to claim my prize of holding him? He may be 13 by the time I'd meet him. That might be a little awkward trying to wrestle him so I get my prize.

Anonymous said...

congrats!!! :)

Kristina said...

oooh I so can't wait to hold him!!!

lhassler said...

I'm so glad all seems so well with him. What a huge blessing.

Tonya said...

I can't say what I'm thinking. I won't, I won't...but I thought it! Ha!