Tag Archive: Sprout


NT Scan

Today was our NT scan. The NT scan measures your risk for having a baby with Down syndrome, Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18. Trisomy 13 and 18 are fatal diagnosis. We only did the NT because it would let us know whether or not baby Sprout had a neural tube defect. I had fairly negligible risks before the screening as my risk for Down Syndrome was 1:877 and the risk for the trisomies was 1:1700 or so.

The start of the appointment was a little rough as they had misplaced the paperwork I filled out last week, so I had to refill it out. Then the ultrasound tech had some bedside manners that Darrell wasn’t to fond of, but we were there to make sure baby was fine and that was all that mattered to me. 🙂

We got to see baby moving around a lot and the tech had a hard time getting the right shot of the neck (for the fluid measurement for the NT scan). She was able to measure Sprout and see all of the appendages. Sprouts heartbeat was at 167 which is exactly where it’s been the whole pregnancy, somewhere between 165-170. The tech had to wiggle my belly around to get Sprout to turn into the right position to measure. Sprout finally moved into position and it was a lot of measuring. The tech did 3 measurements of everything. Sprout was measuring on schedule right between 13 weeks 1 day and 13 weeks 5 days, depending on the angle she was measuring. The neck fluid was measured all times between a 0.09-0.11 (They are looking for it to be less than 3.0). The tech also switched the view to blood flow view to make sure everything was flowing like it should and it was pretty awesome.

So after the tech finished the ultrasound, she gave us some pictures and then left to put the numbers into the risk assessment sheet for my actual risk and then the doctor came in with the results. Both of my risks dropped to 1: >10,000 which is the lowest risk you can get for this test. It made us feel a heck of a lot better. Everything looks as though it is developing normally and the doctor is very optimistic that this will be our very healthy take-home baby. 🙂

We were really excited because we have been waiting until after this test to make it “Facebook official.” So we are finally able to share and now we don’t have any more secrets where we have to watch what we say on facebook so we don’t let things slip. 😛

With that, here are the profile shots of baby Sprout: The first three are just regular profile shots and the last one is a face shot. (I think it looks like a little devil mask)

13 weeks

Weekly Updates:

How far along: 13 weeks

Baby’s size: Medium Shrimp – Your baby has reached the size of a medium shrimp and weighs nearly an ounce. (Length: almost 3 inches, head to bottom.)

Sleep: It has been better than ok. Sometimes I only sleep for 6 hours, but then I take a 2 hour nap during the day. Other times I sleep for a full 10 hours. It really depends on the day and what our activities are.

Maternity Clothes: Yep. I put on my jeans last night since we were going to the christmas parade in downtown and it was cold. I could barely button them up with out sucking it in. They were fine as long as I was standing, but sitting was a no-go without unbuttoning them. Time to put them away.

Food Cravings: Still craving that pulled pork sandwich. It is just a mild craving now, so it might go away soon.

Food Aversions: Haven’t had any aversions lately. I can eat sweets in moderation which is nice since I am loving baking!

Symptoms I have: Almost all of my symptoms have gone away. My face has cleared up and I only get sick occasionally.

Doctor’s Appointment: NT scan on Thursday at the MFM’s office! Midwife appointment on Dec 3. Regular OB appointment Dec 5.

Movement: No flutters this week, but I haven’t really focused on trying to find them.

Belly Button: Innie.

Gender: Team Green!

What I’m looking forward to: Getting our NT scan done. I am starting to get anxious and am hoping everything is ok. After the NT, we are sharing on facebook, so I am excited for that as well.

What I miss: Peppermint schnapps in my hot chocolate, but candy canes work just as well. 🙂

12 Weeks

*I am a day late again, but I have been busy with some other fabulous developments in our lives and once we figure more out, we will share. I will try to update on time next week, but no promises 🙂 *

Weekly Updates:

How far along: 12 weeks

Baby’s size: Lime – Your baby is, by this time, the size of a lime and weighs 1/2 ounce. (Length: just over 2 inches, head to bottom.)

Sleep: Been sleeping a lot more these last couple of days, but I think it is just because we had a very eventful weekend.

Maternity Clothes: Same as always. I am in my comfy clothes since I sit around the house all day. But my jeans are starting to get a little snug.

Food Cravings: I have actually been craving a pulled pork sandwich from Hole in the Wall. Unfortunately, they are in Arcata and I have yet to have one anywhere else near as good. 🙁 So I am hoping that this craving goes away on it’s own.

Food Aversions: Haven’t had any aversions lately. I can eat sweets in moderation which is nice since I am loving baking!

Symptoms I have: Sick again. I think I actually came down with a small bug though. Either that or it was just lack of sleep since I spent all day on Sunday just laying around not being able to do anything. I am also breaking out like a teenager. It isn’t on my face per se, but it is on my chin and down my neck.

Doctor’s Appointment: Did bloodwork and paperwork today in preparation for our NT scan next Thursday at the MFM’s office. Midwife appointment on Dec 3. Regular OB appointment Dec 5.

Movement: I have felt occasional flutters, but I am not completely convinced it is baby yet. Only time will tell.

Belly Button: Innie.

Gender: Team Green!

What I’m looking forward to: Our NT scan and getting to see Sprout again. It has been a long 2 weeks since we heard Sprout’s heartbeat and we still have another week plus to go.

What I miss: Not missing anything this week.

11 weeks

Weekly Updates:

How far along: 11 weeks

Baby’s size: Fig – Your baby is now about as big as a fig. (Length: just over 1.5”, head to bottom)

Sleep: Much, much better. I have been going to bed earlier than normal and I wake up about an hour before Darrell’s alarm goes off. – Typically around 9-11 hours a night

Maternity Clothes: Same as always. I am in my comfy clothes since I sit around the house all day. But my jeans are starting to get a little snug.

Food Cravings: None.

Food Aversions: Only some sweets now. Still not liking the spicy though,

Symptoms I have: Sick, sick, sick…. Spent last Thursday sick as a dog and not able to do anything. Not even the seabands worked. Things have gotten better, but hopefully I only have 2 more weeks of this.

Doctor’s Appointment: MFM’s appointment for paperwork and labwork on Nov 20. MFM appointment for NT ultrasound on Nov 29. Midwife appointment on Dec 3. Regular OB appointment Dec 5.

Movement: Nope. Lots of air bubbles though.

Belly Button: Innie.

Gender: We’re not finding out!

What I’m looking forward to: Our NT scan (Not sure if they are doing everything on the 20th with a results appointment on the 29 or if they are just doing blood on the 20th and saving the ultrasound for the 29th)

What I miss: The fall weather. 🙂 It has finally gotten freezing, but I like the nice not to cold, not to hot weather.

*sigh*

It has been a very long week. Lots of ups and downs and I am completely ready for things to level out, but with all that we have going on right now, I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

We were excited to go see our OB so that we could get our referral to the MFM. Our appointment was on Wednesday morning at 9am which is the first appointment of the day. Granted we got there about 3 minutes late, but there were already 2 other women in the waiting room. I wasn’t worried since they do typically get walk-ins early in the morning, but I had an appointment. About 10 minutes after we signed in, the receptionist calls me up. She asks if this was a natural or IVF conceived baby. I was shocked! Like, come on… this office did all the testing and referred us to an RE, did she not even look at my chart? But I was nice, so I just said it was actually IUI and we had seen the RE again. Mind you, I had gotten a phone call the night before reminding me about the appointment and asking if we had seen any other doctors for it where I told her I had seen the RE and been released just over a week ago. So the receptionist let me sit back down to wait. 5 minutes or so later, she lets me know that they haven’t gotten any forms from the RE’s office and they can’t see me without those forms. Now I am getting frustrated since I KNOW that the RE had faxed over the forms last week. I went outside the office so I didn’t have to give all my information to the RE in front of the other girls in the waiting room. The RE had a paper saying that the fax had gone through, but they would send the paperwork again in a few minutes since it was morning and the RE is always busy in the mornings.

I turned to walk back into the office and noticed the receptionist waving to me. Turns out, the paperwork was in my chart and she was only looking for it in the fax file. So I called back the Re to let them know not to fax the paperwork. Then we sat and waited a little longer. Finally around 10, they called me back. We went into the room and the nurse checked my blood pressure and weight. Then she started asking my all the normal questions they ask at the beginning of a pregnancy. What really got us was then she started asking questions about Pixel and all the information they should have had in my chart since the OB delivered him. Darrell called her out on it and asked her if it was in the chart. She said yeah, but we have to put it in the computer now and it is just easier to ask you. *sigh*

So we finally finish all of the paperwork stage and head into the ultrasound room. They were going to do another transvaginal ultrasound, but we decided that we knew we were going to have a lot of ultrasounds throughout the pregnancy for necessity, that we didn’t think this one was necessary. The doctor was ok with it since we just had one less than 10 days ago. So he used the doppler to find the heartbeat warning us that he might not find it since it was still early and you don’t typically hear it with a doppler until about 12 weeks. But we were able to. A strong little heartbeat in the background of my heartbeat. It was great! We were excited. So we go back to the OB in 4 weeks. We were referred to the MFM for our NT test. The receptionist was on hold with the MFM to set up the appointment. We waited for a few minutes, but seen as it was almost 11, we needed to get Darrell to work. I asked the receptionist to just call me when she got the appointment scheduled.

By 3:45 that afternoon, I still hadn’t heard from the OB’s office, so I called them since they closed at 4. She said that the MFM needed them to fax over the request form and then they would call me to set up the appointment. The receptionist said that if we hadn’t heard from them by Monday, then go ahead and call the OB’s office back and they will see what’s going on. So, now it is Saturday and I didn’t hear anything from the MFM’s office. I’m starting to get frustrated with this and I am wishing we were in a bigger town where we had more options for our care. I know we don’t exactly live in a small town, but this is the only MFM’s office in town. It is just all around sucky. I am hoping that calling on Monday helps clear things up. I want to try to have the NT test done by 12 weeks, but it is looking fairly unlikely right now. 🙁

Other than all of the doctor drama we have had going on, my morning sickness has gotten worse. I spent two days basically sick as a dog and only really able to move off the couch to get food and water. I got a migraine (which probably didn’t help the nausea), and nothing was working again. Not even the seabands. It went away, and I am hoping it stays away, but I am doubtful at this point. I have 3.5 weeks until we hit 14 weeks and the wishful thinking is that it will be gone by then.

There are some other things on our plate not related to baby that we are working on, but only time will tell how things will work out. We are just keeping our fingers crossed that it works out in our favor.

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