It's a Bouncing Baby!

Andrew and I went to get the NT ultrasound. The Nuchal Translucency ultrasound measures the size of the yolk sac that's at the back of a baby's neck during the 1st trimester. The larger the sac, the more likely the baby is to have developmental disabilities, such as downs syndrome. Since I only know half of my genetic history, this test was really important to me. There are other tests we'll get that are non-invasive, but since my NT was only at 1.3 and the scarry numbers are at 3.0 and above it doesn't seem like I'll need amniocentesis (where they stick the needle into the belly).

I'm really happy I got this, mainly because Andrew and I got to see our baby when it was out of the "Gummy Bear" stage (as our doctor called it). At first the lab technician was pressing really hard on my abdomen, and I think that this made the baby wake up and get annoyed. Automatically Andrew and I saw feet a-kicin' and arms a-wavin'. At our last ultrasound, 9 weeks or so, baby way 2.3 centimeters. At this ultrasound our baby was 5.1 centimeters, head to rump, so add another .9 or so for the legs and our baby has almost TRIPPLED in size, and that's only in 3 weeks!!!



So baby started kicking his feet the instant (s)he was on the screen.



I think that baby didn't particulary apreciate being poked with the ultrasound rod thingie. So baby started jumping up and down, flailing its arms around, and disappeared from the camera for a little while. When baby reappared, (s)he'd done a complete one-eighty and was facing the other direction.



The technician had a really hard time from this point on. You see, they needed to see the back of the baby's neck from a profile view. Baby wasn't having any of this. Again, I think it was because the technician kept pushing on my belly really hard; I think I'll have bruises. We ended up with three pictures, and I'm expecting to get more pictures on the 5th of July, when we go in for our next prenatal checkup.

Stay tuned!