Am-Nee-OOOOOHHHH

So this past Friday, Paul and I decided to get an amnio done. If you remember quite a while back, we went to get a quad screen done and the results were that Arjun would have a 1:182 chance of Down Syndrome. Though those are really good odds against downs (about 0.5%) I guess it's always been in the back of his mind. We figured, at this stage (36 weeks) we had little risk, and this would give us time to wrap our heads around the possibility of raising a special needs child before the big day.

We went into the clinic, mom was treated like a rock star because she interviewed there and they all want her to work there. So we did a preliminary ultrasound to make sure Arjun was ok, everything was healthy, and the doctor didn't see any signs of downs which was good. We got some 3D ultrasound pictures done and I think Arjun has Pauls nose and mouth!

I know it's hard to see ultrasounds, but I tried to line up their faces. You can see his nose and lips and he has his fist by his chin. Those little things are his fingers. 

The doctor then prepped me for the procedure. I let everyone know that I would be zoning out, and I did. I just concentrated on my breathing. It felt like a bad cramp, but it was over in no time. I was sort of scared to breath because I didn't want Arjun to move and get stabbed by the needle! 

They sent the amniotic fluid to be tested for downs and also for a fetal lung test to see if his lungs were properly formed. I think I've been freaked about his lungs because poor Paul has bad lungs. 

After the test, they had me lay around for 40 minutes to make sure Arjun was moving alright and that his heart rate was ok. 

We should have our results this friday!

Positive Quad Screen?

Part of the second trimester of pregnancy involves getting a quad screen. This is just a screening where I give blood, it's tested for 4 different things, and that gives you some information about the likelihood of Down Syndrom, Edward Syndrom or things like Spina Bifida or other neural tube defects.

So I got the quad screen done and a couple days later, the doctors office called and said, "It's not an emergency, but the doctor would like to talk to you early next week if you're available." I said ok, hung up the phone and called Paul freaking out a little. He told me to call the doctors office to see if the Dr. would just call me back and tell me whats up, they wouldn't. So I made an appointment to talk to him.

While I was waiting the longest 7 days of my life, I did some research. This was not a TEST, it didn't mean my child HAD Downs, it just would mean that there was some levels of protein that were a little off. Since we thought that the doctors dates were off anyway, we figured the levels they found in the screening would also be wrong and that it would be a false positive. I armed Paul with this information and Wednesday finally came. We went to the OB and were not surprised that the screen gave us 1:128 odds of being positive for DS. That's it... a mere 0.8% chance. We were ok with the news because we did our research and we believe there are other factors that gave us a high result.

The next day,  I went to pick my mom up at work and we got to play with the ultrasound machine. She, of course, looked to see the gender right away. "HE'S GOT A SCROTUM, HE'S GOT A SCROTUM!" She started to chant. He for sure is a boy, or a girl with a scrotum! We checked him out and he looked fine.

This past Saturday, we had an appointment at the OB with a sonographer and she said that the baby looked great and amazing. At the end of the appointment, we told her about the quad screen and she said everything looked good, but the only thing that she saw was a Intracardiac Echogenic Foci. She said that this happens to a lot of children, it also happens with DS children, so it's not really a tell tale sign somethings wrong. After doing research on that as well, it appears to disappear in the third trimester. Again, not worried. We have a more detailed doctors appointment with specialists next week. We'll see how that goes!