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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