12 weeks

This past week has been a busy one in the baby department and in life in general. I had my regular doctor appointment on Tuesday and then I had a special ultrasound scheduled for Thursday, all while working a full week and shopping for a new car. Forget about pregnancy fatigue, I think any normal person would be tired after all of that. I'm looking forward to sleeping in this weekend, and French toast and turkey bacon ... mmmmmmmm.

Since our insurance covers the test and we generally like to know what we're getting ourselves in to we opted to have a Nuchal Translucency Scan. It's basically some blood tests coupled with a special ultrasound during which they measure amount of fluid behind the neck of the fetus to determine the likelihood of downs syndrome and other birth defects. It was also a good excuse to me to see Stumpy again, and for Bill to get his first chance to see the Stumpmeister.

So, yesterday we headed to the office my regular docs referred us to. They performed the ultrasound first. As soon as she put the transducer on my belly we saw the baby right away and then it jumped to say Hi. That was pretty neat. We got some good profile shots and saw it do some flips and wave and kick. Of course when the tech needed the baby to move in order to get a good shot and get the measurement that was the whole purpose of the ultrasound the baby didn't want to move. This baby's already ornery. The tech got the measurement eventually, but I got poked in the meantime trying to get the baby to jump. The doctor came in and reviewed the results and everything looks normal so far. The baby is measuring right on at 12 weeks, had a heart rate of 167, and the indicators that they look for suggest that the baby does not have downs syndrome. We were already pretty low risk, but it's nice to have the piece of mind. I'm no pussy when it comes to giving blood, so that part of our visit was fairly uneventful. After the blood tests are complete (I have a follow-up one in several weeks) we'll get a more specific ratio of likeliness for several different common birth defects, but I'm pretty confident based on our visit that everything is golden.

During the ultrasound portion of our visit, I also learned that I have a tilted uterus. It's nothing to be worried about, just a fun fact. So, you know, in case anyone ever asks you if you know someone who has a titled uterus, you can say yes.

Oh yah, and we got pictures from the ultrasound. They're good ones too. When I get a chance to recover from the chaos, I'll post 'em here.

Here they are:

This update wouldn't be complete without our handy dandy email excerpt about the baby's development. So, here ya go:

The most dramatic development this week: Reflexes. Your baby's fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won't be able to feel it. His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over two inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.