Not quite graduation day…

Last night I woke up at 2 a.m. At 3 a.m. I gave up and got out of bed, went downstairs and drank some warm milk while cuddling with our cats. At 4.25 a.m., as I crawled back into bed, Q. rolled over and said sleepily, “Are you worrying about the ultrasound?”

“Maybe,” I replied, and fell back into an uneasy sleep.

This morning I packed up my sharps container, my packs and packs of unused needles and my leftover meds (which I was able to donate to my clinic’s compassionate meds stockpile- this made me happy). On the way down to the clinic Q. and I had, not an argument, but a strained discussion about what we would do if the nuchal scan suggested there was a problem. I wanted to do CVS so we wouldn’t have to wait in agony for several more weeks. Q. didn’t want to put the baby at a higher risk just so I would be less stressed. We agreed if the scan was bad we would see what our f/s recommended.

At the clinic we had a pretty long wait for the ultrasound- close to an hour. I forced myself to breathe normally, to flip through the magazines, to chat with Q. like nothing was at stake.

Then, at last, it was our turn. We had the lovely, chatty tech from our last scan. She set up the screen so we could basically see the whole thing right from the start. She clicked and took some measurements. Took some pictures and some more measurements. Bub was much bigger- I could see that, and moving around. But bub wouldn’t get into the necessary position.

“Can you try coughing?” she asked me. So I coughed as best I could and bub, obviously agitated by the disturbance, did a lazy backwards roll, and then settled in the perfect position.

“Perfect!” said the tech. “Don’t move baby!” She clicked, froze the image, drew a box on the screen. There was a pause while the computer program calculated.

The result came up: NT 1.3 mm

I cried. I couldn’t help it- the relief was just overwhelming. The tech took more pictures. “Beautiful,” she said. “Perfect.  See that spine? That is perfect.”

She did the NT measurement again. And again. Finally she recorded it as 1.5 mm.

“You see that picture on the wall?” she asked, pointing to the image that demonstrated where to measure the nuchal fold. “Your baby could be that model. Your baby is perfect.”

I still cry when I think of that moment. Our baby is perfect. Our baby is real. We’re going to bring him/her home in May.

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For the technically curious, bub measured in at 5.79 cm and had a heart rate of 171 bpm. Bub is still measuring ahead by a day, and Q. think s/he has got my long legs. At 9w6d, bub was 3.71 cm and had a heart rate of 173 bpm. I still have the clot, and it doesn’t seem to be getting smaller, so I didn’t get to graduate today. We get one more checkup and ultrasound at 14 weeks so my f/s can be certain that all is well. But I did get the ok to stop the progesterone and estrace, effective immediately, so all that is left is the prenatal, baby aspirin and my thyroid meds.

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And for your viewing pleasure (if I can figure it out)- the latest shots of bub, one in 2D (bub’s hands are up near the face, hence the pointy horned look) and one in 3D (which really just demonstrates how alien bubs look at this stage of development, despite their cute profiles in 2D…)