Ultrasound Scare

Any time we get to peer into the world of our unborn baby it is a happy, special day. It is truly special having this amazing technology that allows us access into his world. We are able to count his fingers and toes, watch him yawn, roll and move. During our forty minute ultrasound last week we got to see a lot of baby - more than I cared to know. Ignorance is in fact bliss. We asked to not find out the sex of baby (yahoo, I was strong) but I have a pretty strong feeling that he is a he! The ultrasound pictures are just too clear even for the untrained eye! Or it could be me making stuff up!! We will know in a few months!

As as I laid back gazing at my baby, Dylan had the task of wrangling our little monster. Addi was not into watching baby pictures this time and was bouncing off the walls. She was almost impossible to control - nap time, a small enclosure and an empty belly will do that do a 3 year old pretty quickly.

The ultrasound tech seemed really great. She talked us though what we were seeing and even tried engaging Addison. Something didn't seem quite right though. She would go silent and then scan back to the baby's brain and abdomen, re-measure and then move on to another part of baby only to return to the brain and abdomen. When she made up a lame excuse to leave the room I just knew she saw something she didn't like. She assured us the radiologist and our doctor would review the pictures and call us with the results. I hadn't been back at work for 10 minutes when I got a phone call from my midwife. My heart sank and I just knew there was something wrong. I tried to keep it together as she explained they had found extra abdominal fluid in the baby. What it meant she couldn't tell me. She asked me to come back into the office for blood work to rule out any viruses that I may have transmitted to our baby. We met with the doctor and he tried explaining to us what abdominal fluid in the baby meant, what causes it and how do we fix it. Because we don't know for sure the extent of the problem we were left hanging without much information. It could be viral related, a chromosome defect, rH blood related, heart related or a hand full of other things. The waiting game is torture. I hate not knowing.

They took several large viles of blood and tested it for herpes, parvovirus, rubella and several other rare viruses. They also checked my antibodies for anything abnormal. These blood tests have since come back negative. I am not sure if that is good or not. As Dylan said, "Anytime they can rule something out that is a positive."

It is hard not to panic. We just don't know anything yet. It could be very serious for our baby or it could turn out to be nothing. We just don't know. Our next move is this Wednesday. We have an appointment to meet with Dr. Keys, a perinatalogist specialist in Great Falls. He will be doing a level two ultrasound and we will go from there. It is possible I would need an amniocentesis for further testing. I am not even going to go into what I found on Google. It is too scary and I am trying to remain hopeful that the first ultrasound was a fluke and this next ultrasound will find nothing. We will know more on Wednesday.