Peace in small doses

Well, I spoke with my midwife, Emma, this morning. I don't think I've mentioned yet how terrific that I think she is. She's so down to earth and reassuring. We had a long discussion about the results of the ultrascreen. She had only received the ultrasound results and said they looked fantastic. The nuchal translucency was just right (Matthew's was totally not right), the heartbeat was strong, and the baby's size was right on track for 12-13 weeks. She was so surprised when I told her that the ultra-screen showed an increased risk for Down Syndrome since the ultrasound looked clear. While Emma couldn't tell me that we got a false positive, she did reassure me that the risk was still relatively low.

I think Peter and I have pretty much decided not to have the amnio until after my 18-20 week ultrasound (if at all). Emma pointed out that the risk of miscarriage after an amnio was 1 in 200 which is greater than the risk of the baby having a chromosome abnormality. All these stats are just gripping, aren't they?? Ugh. Anyway, we think that it isn't worth putting the baby at risk before we get some additional indication that something isn't right. Emma is going to send me to a maternal fetal specialist for my 18-20 week ultrasound. The specialist will take an in-depth look at the baby, especially at the markers which can indicate chromosome abnormalities. If something comes up at that ultrasound, then we can make a decision about whether or not to do an amnio. The risk of losing the pregnancy at that point goes down since there are more pockets of fluid to draw the amniotic fluid.

All of this technical mumbo-jumbo is probably more than any of you ever wanted to read! But, I wanted to reassure you that I do feel better about the results of the test and know that we can handle whatever comes our way.

In the meantime, we're spending our time enjoying having a potty-trained, well spoken little boy who is a joy! I just took Alexander to the pediatrician for his 3-year-old checkup and he passed with flying colors. He is 30.5 pounds and 37 inches tall. His pediatrician said that we didn't need to discuss the milestones for this year since he had already exceeded them at his 2-year appointment! You should have seen this proud mama strut out of his office! Peter, of course, being the overachiever of the family, wondered why the doc couldn't have checked him for all the 4-year-old milestones! I was going to try to post a current photo of Alexander but the uploader is having some sort of mid-life crisis right now so you'll have to wait until my next post (if blogger has fixed the problem) to see what he looks like!