Follow-up #3

November 21st - Fetal Echocardiogram at Herma Heart Center, Children's Hospital

One of the major concerns from the thickened nuchal fold was that it could have been caused by an abnormality in her heart. Her heart had been checked at the previous two appointments but it was required (with an abnormal NT scan) that a scan be done by a heart doctor. Thankfully the previous ultrasound tech had warned me that, unlike herself, the doctor that would do the echo scan would not talk during the ultrasound. 

Small things like that, knowing ahead of time that the silence would be present no matter what, make a really big difference. 

The doctor was a nice lady with a bit of an accent. The moment she put the transducer to my belly we could see the baby bouncing around. "Oh, she will be a dancer!" she says. We carefully watch the screen but the baby won't sit still. At one point we can see her small legs moving as if she was running. Every time that the doctor would zoom in on her heart the baby would squirm off screen. I looked up at the doctor who was concentrating, staring at the screen. 

"She is trying to run away... but she has nowhere to go..." she says in a very serious manner. 

I, not helping the matter at hand, bust out laughing. I have to look away from the screen and concentrate on the curtain hanging by the bed or else I will laugh and cause the doctor more grief.

"Well, she is finally still... but she has the hiccups. Can you feel it?" she asks. I quickly look to the screen. The baby's chest is methodically contracting. I shake my head no and attempt to stifle a giggle but it doesn't work. Every time I look at the screen I find it humorous that my baby is being such a squirm and now with the hiccups she looked so defeated in her attempts to run away.

I manage to sit still for the rest of the scan (as does the baby) and the doctor is able to get the mass amounts of images and videos of her heart that she needed. After a half hour of silence she sets the transducer back down and says "I see nothing wrong, everything looks good."

She explained that it was possible there were things that she couldn't see because she was not only going through layers of the baby's body, but mine as well - but as far as she could tell everything was fine.

Because of good news thusfar there will only be one more scan to confirm all good findings and it won't need to be for another 8 weeks. (All previous scans had been 4 weeks apart - plus the echo traditionally at 20 weeks.) She also told me that if there was an abnormality it usually would have presented by now. The 28 week scan would confirm that everything had continued to grow properly. 

3 scans with no hesitation of good news - one more to go! :)