An Overdue Update

I haven't wanted to write a post about what was going on for a while, but I guess it is time. Almost 5 weeks ago is when we went to the first real ultrasound at the hospital which is when we found out that we are having the girl. What we didn't know though until my doctor appointment 2 weeks later was that they think she had a club foot, but wanted another opinion just in case. So we were scheduled for an ultrasound at the University of Utah Hospital for May 1. Our doctor assured us that he has seen this from time to time, but then they don't have it.

We arrived at the hospital at 8 AM, we thought we would go in, they would say yes or no and then we would leave. Well we were there for 4 hours! I think it seemed even longer because we had just spent 3 hours in the Primary's hospital for Peyton on Monday. We went in and the ultrasound tech kept asking me some questions about her size at the last ultrasound etc. I didn't really think much of it. The next two hours she spent trying to get the girl to move to see her left foot, the one we were wondering about. She did all the sizes again which I thought was odd since we just had them done at the other ultrasound, but whatever. She did check again and no, boy parts have not grown so we can still buy pink!

So I had to move around a few times, we switched to the 3D machine to see if we could get her to move better. Then we were seeing a club foot and then when she would get her to move it looked normal. So a doctor came in to take a look. That is when she decided to tell us what was going on. Seriously a club foot isn't a big deal, yeah if it is a major she will have to get surgery, but we could deal with it. She said that since we were seeing such different points of view she is leaning toward the baby having a mild club foot. However, that isn't what they were concerned about. At the last ultrasound the baby was measuring about 4 days smaller than what they originally thought. Now she was almost 2 weeks smaller than what she should be and mostly the growth has slowed in her head.

So then they sent us to where I had no idea we would possibly go just to go in to look at a club foot, Genetic Counseling. Really? Then they mentioned the A word. Now they mentioned this when Peyton was almost 33 weeks old gestational. It was Amniocenticis or Amnio. I was not ready then for one and neither was Peyton. They were going to do one on him to make sure his lungs where developed enough to take him at 36 weeks. Well obviously that did it and 2 days later is when he became our little preemie! So if you don't know what an Amnio is, it is where they take a needle through the stomach to gather some amniotic fluid. If you know me I am not a needle person! Getting my blood drawn is horror for me. Seriously my two surgeries last year the thing I was most afraid of was the IV since I knew I would be out for the rest of it. So you can imagine Phil's suprise when I agreed to it!

But for this Amnio they wanted to take the fluid to test the chromosomes for a genetic disorder. Which could be Down's Syndrome or another Trisonomy disease such as 13 and 18. The 13 and 18 both have low survival rates and most babies don't live very long. So that scared us. After the biology lesson we recieved she added that the hospital will support us in the event we choose to have an abortion. Again if you know me I am very prolife so of course that isn't an option, it was just weird to hear how they will support it. However there is only a 5 percent chance that it is related to that, but it is a very serious 5 percent chance. If the growth is not related to chromosomes then we will probaby do other testing to find out what is going on with her growth and I will probably be in to the hospital more times than I would like to track her growth more.

So in we go for the Amnio. I was not excited about it, but I told them I wanted to get it now instead of having to think about it more than I wanted to if we waited a few days. When we got in there imagine our suprise, alright I am a bit sarcastic on this one, that she didn't move and there was not a good position to get it. So they sent us on a walk for a half hour to see if she would move. It was already 11:30 so we decided to go find the cafeteria and eat. Um who would have thought that they had a Burger King in the hospital. That was funny to me! Anyway after eating and drinking some diet coke to get her to move more we went back up and she had finally moved! I decided that she wasn't a morning person, taken after yours truly and didn't want to be bothered until after lunch. So finally and unluckily I still had to do the Amnio, but I did get it over with, whew! That wasn't a pleasant test at all and I am sorry for those that have to get it too, it isn't the worst thing obviously, but I was pretty sore afterwards!

So now we wait. We will get the test results in 1-2 weeks and then proceed from there.

On another note the boys and I are alone for the next few days as Phil got up early this morning to drive to St. George. I keep wondering if he is going to be tempted to go to Las Vegas...;) Too bad he had to get up so early and probably just wants to go to sleep when he gets to the hotel tonight!