Wow.

warning to infertilinas - much baby and pregnancy talk and pictures to follow.

Let me start off by saying that my Perinatologist is an absolute doll. Kind, soft spoken and thorough - what more can a girl ask for?

I liked the genetic counselor who was quite thorough and seemed more concerned about my risk of breast cancer than anything else. It seems that my risk for passing chromosomal abnormalities is only age-related, nothing else. We discussed my odds - she put them around 1:95 for Trisomy 18 (Downs) and similar odds for other abnormalities. She spoke in layman's terms until I finally broke down and told her I was an RN at which point she stopped babying me a bit. But she was good and very thorough. The one thing she said that I clung to was that if the nuchal didn't look wonderful, there was the option of doing a CVS right there and then. I kept that in mind as a benchmark.

After a long discussion, she took me to what I thought was the cooter cam room. I was about to drop trou when the tech stopped me and told me just to lower my pants a bit, this u/s was done abdominally. Oops. Infertility strikes again!

Anyway, she left me with my pants slightly lowered, displaying my flabby white belly. The peri arrived and seriously, what a nice man. He introduced himself, talked a bit about what we were looking for, tut-tutted over my bad back and got to work. I could see something ... and he said "Ok, we're measuring the crown-rump length (CRL) and you're right on target, 12 weeks and 1 day!" at which point I sort of choked out "is there a heartbeat?"
Dr Risky looked at me with a very kind look, and very softly said "I'm sorry. Let's do this the right way from the beginning, shall we?". I think I fell in love right there and then. And sure enough, there was the heartbeat at 171. I even heard it, loud and clear. Faithful readers will know me well enough to know that I was sobbing at this point. Dr Risky showed me the spine and the stomach, even the bladder. It was quite something!

Then he went to measure the neck fold and the bambino was squirming away. I mean ... the bean was doing the mambo. It was tough for Dr Risky to get a measurement at first but eventually he got 1.4mm, which put me well below the 50th percentile for abnormalities. Of course, that's all contingent on the bloodwork, but no one suggested the CVS, which made me breathe easier.

And then ... and then ... he switched the ultrasound to 3D. And for an instant, just an instant, I saw my baby's face. Not this amorphous blob that kept wriggling, but a baby. With a face and a body ... a real baby. My baby.

For the first time this is starting to come home to me. I've been relatively ambivalent about this pregnancy up till this point. And now ... I - we - may actually have a baby to show for all the turmoil, pain and heartache of the last couple of years. I'm over-joyed, afraid and ... slightly less terrified than I was up till now.

12 weeks. Wow.

And here s/he is ...


the blob!


a view from the rear


3D ... and sucking his/her thumb