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27 May 2004

My second ultrasound and nuchal folds examination.

Again this scan was performed at the Fetal Medicine Centre in London.

The Pictures...

 

Peek-a-boo, I see you! 12w1d, 27 May 2004	Time for a nap... 12w1d, 27 May 2004

What Mamma Said About Today

Mamma has been contributing to the Pregnancy Lounge forum while I have been in utero. Here's what she said about today:

Just come back from the scan - your good vibes and all the praying obviously worked, as it went really, really well. David and I are delighted! Baby measures 64.2mm, exactly 12w1d, which means s/he has progressed as it should. Good strong heartbeat of 160 bpm.

Baby was a lot less exuberant this time, the Doctor had to keep (gently!) shaking my belly to try to make him move into a better position. The little blighter did move when shaken, but then slowly crawled back into its previous position! Still, with a bit of patience we managed to get the right views for all the measurements. The little one did enjoy stretching arms and legs against the walls of my uterus, which was the cutest thing. You could clearly make out the spine, the legs, the arms and even the fingers on the hands. Amazing. For a lot of the time s/he kept his/her hands in front of the eyes, which made it look a bit as though s/he was crying! The Doctor didn't say, but perhaps it was having a doze? Did you know that babies sleep for 10 mins, then wake up again for another 10 mins, then sleep again etc etc? I didn't and was quite amazed to find out bub is awake a lot of the time at night when I sleep.

(Hey hey HEY, Mamma! How would you like to be woken up? )

The nuchal translucency measurement was very good (1.2 mm) and, combined with the bloods, gave me a likelihood of the baby having Down Syndrome of 1:8021, which is 10 times less than the risk based on my age alone (1:803). The Doctor said that it corresponds to the likelihood of a 15 year-old girl!! The nasal bone was also there, and that improves the odds somewhat, but since it is still something they're researching, they don't factor it in the risk. But knowing it is there is good. Based on these results, she recommended not to do any invasive tests. I think anything above 1:300 we wouldn't have done anyway because the risk is too great to even consider.

Really, we could not have wished for a better result. The Doctor was very positive and said everything is looking great so far and we have no reason to worry at all. She took the time to answer the myriad of questions we had which was great.

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