U.B. visits the O.B.
I had my 5-month checkup today. Dada came along and he and Isaac played in the hospital lounge whilst I and my practitioner did our thing. I've gained only 3 lbs since I saw her 5 weeks ago, so she told me to step it up a bit. I'm doing my part right now, as I blog, with the Lay's and sour cream and onion dip and a healthy-sized portion of some Entemann's coffee cake. Whereas at my last appointment U.B.'s house was measuring very much on the small side of average, this time the bump has swelled to perfectly normal and unworrisome proportions. After U.B. wrestled around in there as soon as she put the doppler up to my belly, U.B.'s heart rate was finally clocked at 160 bpm. My blood pressure was normal, even a bit low, at 100/50, and I got a flu shot right there in the exam room. In two weeks I go back to ingest some Orange Super-Fanta for my glucose tolerance test.
The only question I had for her was that I wanted to hear the official results of my ultrasound and triple screen. Triple screen first: U.B. has a 1 in 10,000 chance of having spina bifida (as compared a national average of occurence at 1 in 1500 or 2000 live births), and a 1 in 3800 chance of having Down Syndrome (that's 1/3 less than the average for a 25-year-old pregnant lady, which is 1 in 1250). In short, our baby is healthy as a horse. This is seconded by the ultrasound, where my patient and delightful practitioner read off every line of the radiologist's report: "Brain is normal, kidneys normal, appendages normal, heart normal, head down, cord normal..." The radiologist detected "no fetal or uterine abnormalities," which is of course just super. She then asked if they told me the gender at the ultrasound. I said the technician told me it was a boy. Super-Practitioner-Lady then said, "Yep, and they are so sure that it's a boy that they even wrote it here in the radiologist's report, which they normally don't do." So that was kinda cool. And measurements of U.B. taken during the ultrasound confirmed, to the day, my due date as predicted by the last appearance of Aunt Flo. So in or around February 21 I shall bring forth a little brother for my Isaac.
The only question I had for her was that I wanted to hear the official results of my ultrasound and triple screen. Triple screen first: U.B. has a 1 in 10,000 chance of having spina bifida (as compared a national average of occurence at 1 in 1500 or 2000 live births), and a 1 in 3800 chance of having Down Syndrome (that's 1/3 less than the average for a 25-year-old pregnant lady, which is 1 in 1250). In short, our baby is healthy as a horse. This is seconded by the ultrasound, where my patient and delightful practitioner read off every line of the radiologist's report: "Brain is normal, kidneys normal, appendages normal, heart normal, head down, cord normal..." The radiologist detected "no fetal or uterine abnormalities," which is of course just super. She then asked if they told me the gender at the ultrasound. I said the technician told me it was a boy. Super-Practitioner-Lady then said, "Yep, and they are so sure that it's a boy that they even wrote it here in the radiologist's report, which they normally don't do." So that was kinda cool. And measurements of U.B. taken during the ultrasound confirmed, to the day, my due date as predicted by the last appearance of Aunt Flo. So in or around February 21 I shall bring forth a little brother for my Isaac.
posted by Claire at 8:53 AM
5 Comments:
That's great news! Congrats on cooking a healthy UB in there! Can't believe how fast it's going by! Does it feel that way for you?
Thank you, ma'am. Yes, it does feel like it's flying by...I think it helps, in that regard, to have something else to focus on (for example, a nonstop toddler) so you're not obsessively googling about every possible pregnancy-related whatever. February seems just around the corner!
5 months already? Boy, that flew by! With the holidays around the corner, you'll be so distracted that UB will be here before you know it!
I always got so confused with all the tests. I mean, I'm more the Dumb and Dumber' One in a million" means there's a chance. So, I just told my Doc, "Tell me when to worry" and she said not to so I didn't (mostly).
Glald UB is growin' like a champ! Look! Already a stellar baby.
Monkeygirl -- oh man, don't I know it. I can't believe how close February is...maybe I better get that mattress for the crib sometime, eh?
Mrs. F -- being a(n ex?) biochemist, I'm kind of a glutton for the tests. When I was preggers with the Isaac, a professor friend of mine lent me a med-school textbook on developmental embryology so I could read about the nitty-gritty of what was going on in there. It was interesting, but disturbing at times, since obviously most of what they learn about comes from babies who didn't make it. By my rough calculations according to figure captions in that book, the number 1 life-threatening danger to babies-in-the-making? Car crashes. Everybody wear your dang seatbelt already.
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