Magpie's 20w6d anatomy scan

We had a second anatomy scan this morning, just shy of the 21 week mark. First off, baby is still alive! Phew.

This time, we saw the corpus callosum, good amniotic fluid level, well functioning four-chambered heart, femurs, arm bones, hand bones, feet, vertebrae, cute nose and lips, intact palate, properly positioned cord insertion, and a three vessel cord.

They also checked down below and Magpie is definitely still Ms. Magpie, not a mister.

Cervix remains long and closed, measuring over 4mm (phew!)

The only potential issue they saw is that the placenta is somewhat close to my cervix. (1.9 cm and they said it should be over 2.0 for safety). So they want me back again in a month to check on this. I am not super worried about it at this time. It is close to 2.0cm, and the fallout if I have marginal placental previa is that I will have a cesarean. I would strongly prefer a vaginal birth, but mostly what I want is a healthy, live baby. However we get her here is secondary.

So I have to go back in four weeks to check the placenta again.

It was a long, long appointment, because the little miss wouldn't get in the right position to finish checking the heart and pulmonary artery. She finally did (after me drinking juice, coughing, doing jumping jacks, rolling around on the table, and lots of poking... but it took her over an hour!). Apparently, this is one stubborn little girl.

The coolest part is that my mom is here this week visiting from across the country. She hasn't seen me pregnant until now, so this in itself is super wonderful, and she came with Will and me to the anatomy scan and saw the baby up close and personal, which was very special. I took her out to Sarabeth's for breakfast afterward. All in all a great start to a Friday.

Here she is...one day shy of 21 weeks...I still can't believe it.

Mo

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17 week anatomy scan results and picture

Sorry for the delayed post. I know I made at least a few of you nervous. I was totally wiped out yesterday and had to also prepare a talk for today. This morning, I spoke to 400 military service members for three hours. Yowza. Ex-haus-ting. It went well, but I am glad to have the talk behind me.

So...on to the anatomy scan. Yesterday, at 16 weeks, 6 days, I had my first anatomy scan. I thought I would need to drink a bunch of water, but turns out, that was not needed. Will and I were nervous. Me especially. I worried that the baby had died (I hadn't used the doppler in the past several days to reduce the baby's exposure time, since I knew this scan would be long, but of course that left me extra antsy). I was also nervous specifically about heart defects. They seem relatively common, so just at baseline I was worried about it, and then I came across information in the past week that high vitamin E intake in pregnancy is associated with congenital heart defects. I haven't been trying to supplement with vitamin E, but I've been taking high doses of fish oil (10 capsules a day per one of my doctor's instructions)...and it turned out when I checked the bottle that it contained vitamin E also...so inadvertently, I was supplementing this. Once I did the math, I started to seriously panic. I was way above the dosages associated with heart defects in this study. I've been trying without much success to calm myself since then.

So needless to say, a nervous-at-baseline Mo was especially nervous about this anatomy scan. 

Luckily, everything looks good so far. The center I went to has you meet with a high risk OB right when you do the scan, so we were able to get our results and have all of our questions answered. He said that all looked good. There were a few things we couldn't see yet, re: the heart (can't yet rule out a ventricular septal defect), at least one thing we couldn't see yet re: the brain (the corpus collosum), and the OB also said that later on the kidneys could turn out to be polycystic. But we saw what we should see at this stage. A four-chambered heart, a closed abdominal wall, a cute button nose, lips! (with no cleft), two kidneys with good blood flow, the stomach, all the bones where they should be. The OB said we could see 90-95% of what we need to see and that I should come back at 20 weeks, when they will be able to see the rest. 

They also checked my cervix, and although they didn't give me the measurement, it looked nice and closed, even to nervous me. 

The baby, they said, weighs about 6 ounces now (my little petite filet!).

And, they said that they are 99% sure that it is a girl.

Wow. A baby girl! That is just amazing. This whole experience continues to be so completely mindblowing. We haven't been hoping too strongly one way or the other - we just want a healthy, living baby. But a girl is extra special. In Will's family, there are 9 sons between all of his siblings. There are 0 daughters. In my family, 2 stepsons among my siblings, 0 daughters. So this little girl is going to get doted on, I do think.

So without further ado, here she is!

Mo

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