Three Men & Me

Is it really Friday?? These weeks are pulling vanishing acts on me. As of today, I am 21 weeks and 1 day along. My "bumpity bump" is turning into a full out pregnant belly. I swear I went from, "awww, isn't this little baby bump so cute" to "holy shit, what have I been feeding you kid??". We had an ultrasound Tues that did confirm that his growth was moving right along...he was measuring 4 days ahead. Oh, and he, is still a he. However, the very unfriendly u/s tech did remind us that nothing is 100% until the baby comes out! Uh, thanks captain obvious.

We would not be Dave and Kylee if we did not walk out of there with just that tiny bit of doubt and worry...that would be way too simple. We found out the the baby has a Choroid Plexus Cyst. It sounds very scary, but in reality it is not uncommon and not dangerous, it does not affect the baby at all. Many pregnancies go undetected for this because most regular pregnancies do not have a Level II comprehensive scan. The cysts are typically present between 16-28 weeks and they resolve themselves. However, the bad thing is that it "can" be a soft marker for Trisomy 18. My earlier bloodwork did not show me screening positive for Trisomy 13/18, but it did show me at an elevated risk for where I should be for my age.

These two things combined made the Dr take note and therefore he felt the need to explain the situation to us. Dr's just have this certain look...most people, fortunately, will never get familiar enough with this face to recognize it, but Dave and I are pros. It is like you look at the Dr and you just know he is going to say something that you don't want to hear, but sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, "la la la" won't change the situation.

Trisomy 18 is when, for some reason during cell division, there is a third copy of the 18th chromosome instead of just two, sounds like no big deal, but this condition is not compatible with life. Most babies will die in utero and only 5% of babies delivered with this condition will actually make it to their first birthday. And that first year will not be that of a normal child.

Because of this cyst my ratio did drop down to around 1/250 which is hovering in the danger zone. To look at the ratio better it would still give us a 99.6% chance of having a normal healthy baby. The Dr stated that "usually" if a baby has this condition there are other soft markers and not just an isolated choroid plexus cyst. For example, most babies with Trisomy 18 have heart conditions, clenched fists, rocker bottom feet, intrauterine growth restriction and other structural abnormalities. In our case, everything seems to look great in those departments.

The only way to know if our little guy has this condition is to do an amnio and the risk associated with miscarriage during an amnio is higher than the risk associated with our child having this mutation. So for now, we wait...we are GREAT waiters:) As positive as we are staying and as much as I think that our lil man is healthy and fine it is scary to know what the Dr will be looking for at every ultrasound appointment. We really are livin on a prayer:):):)

Keep growing Mr Bun!!!!

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