Today we had our 2nd ultrasound at the fertility clinic. Everything is looking good. Sprout is growing properly and is even cooperating for the photos. When we got our pictures of Pixel during our 8th week, it looked just like the 6th week only bigger. You couldn’t tell that it was actually a baby. Sprout’s are a totally different story. We could see the umbilical cord going from Sprout to the placenta and we were able to see that the umbilical cord was pulsing normally. We were able to see the yolk sac that is slowly shrinking as the two lining are coming together. We could see the fluid where the brain is developing and it looked like everything was forming just like it should. We won’t know for fact until later in the pregnancy. We could see the little arms and legs forming, and Sprout even waved them around for us. It was such a better ultrasound than any we had with Pixel. We are so excited and happy.
Our clinic gave us the choice to either come back to them in two weeks for a last ultrasound or to go ahead and be released to the OB, Midwife, and MFM. We decided to go ahead and be released. So now I have to call both the OB and Midwife tomorrow to set up appointments. At our first appointment with the OB, we should be getting a referral to the MFM so that we can go ahead and do our 12 week Nuchal Translucency (NT) ultrasound there. That should be where they can tell us whether they see any defects in the forming of the spinal column and let us know what our chances would be for another neural tube defect.
That’s about it. We are excited that Sprout isn’t camera shy and is letting us get good ultrasounds. It certainly eases our minds a little bit. I admit that I have been having small anxiety attacks the night before each ultrasound and probably will before every appointment until we hear the heartbeat. I’m glad they only hit the night before instead of like the week leading up to it. I can handle one night of restless sleep. 🙂
So, pictures!
The picture on the left is of Sprout. The outlined area is the heart. You can see the umbilical cord towards the top of the screen and the little blob towards the bottom left is the shrinking yolk sac. The picture on the right is a measurement of Sprout. Measuring a few days behind, but fairly balled up, so it’s not a big deal.
These two look the same, but the picture on the left is of the front view of Sprout. You can’t make out facial features yet. The picture on the right is the backview and you can kind of see Sprouts spine.
And last but not least — the heartbeat! It was a beautiful measurement of 174. Perfect for this gestation! It was a very strong heartbeat with no dips (the dips you see on the measurement was the doctor accidentally moving the wand just a little bit).
So that is our little Sprout! We are almost 1/4 of the way there. 8 more days!