Pregnancy: Lucky number 13

          Week 13 was actually a pretty great 

week! I did still have more nausea and acid 

reflux than I thought I would, as well as the 

up all night pee breaks. But as a whole, the 

week was pretty good. On Monday we went 

to the perinatologist to have our first 

trimester ultra-screen done. The office was 

nice enough, but boy oh boy, you should 

have seen the ultrasound machines! 

I haven’t seen many ultrasound machines in 

my life, but I am sure that this one would 

rank pretty high!

          The machine was hooked up to a very nice flat screen television above and in front of me so that I could see everything the tech saw. It was really amazing! I couldn’t believe how clear these pictures were. All of our previous ultrasounds were grainy and unfocused. You could tell that there was something in my womb, but you couldn’t really make out much detail. However, with this machine, it was like the babies were right there in front of us! We could see fingers, hands, legs, feet, noses, lips, spines, stomach cavities, bladders…etc.!!!!! 

Oh, and the heart beat! If you recall, I had a bad experience with the last lady who put a Doppler on me (please see last week’s post). This time we not only heard the heart beats loud and clear, but we saw them! The machine actually showed the heart beat wave, kind of like a heart monitor.

          Those babies were both very active as always! The amazing thing was that the babies would be dancing around, but as soon as the tech tried to get them on the ultrasound, they would pause and let her do what she needed to do. They were very cooperative. Baby B was actually lying on their side and waving at us! I think they are just as excited to meet us as we are to meet them!

          At this appointment the doctor screened for Down Syndrome, which consisted of measuring the fluid at the back of the babies necks and then they also drew some blood to be sent off. Based on the ultrasound, the doctor said the babies did not look like they were at risk for DS and then a few days later I also got a great call saying that the blood work also came back negative for DS, trisomy 13 and trisomy 18(?)!!! So that was fantastic news!

          The doctor that we saw was pretty good. He was nice enough and seemed very confident in his field. He also told me that he wants to see me every month (unlike the other perinatologist!!). This means that we have found our permanent perinatologist; yippee! He did mention that sometimes twins run a larger risk for heart defects, so in October I will have an echocardiogram (or something that sounds like that) done. Oh, and he also mentioned that these babies could be here as early as the beginning of December. That is just over 4 months away!! Guess we better get busy on that nursery!