We Had Another Ultrasound Today

So at 22 weeks and 4 days, we had another ultrasound.  She is perfect - weighing in at 1 pound 2 ounces with a heart rate of 146.  

You might be asking yourself, "didn't they just have an ultrasound?".  And the answer is yes, about a month ago.  We worried some people because we were gone so long for our previous appointment, but we told everyone (other than the grandparents) that everything was fine and that we just had to wait awhile, but that was NOT the entire truth.  

The truth was that the doctor saw 2 cysts in our baby's head.  Once he verified, he started off saying "OK, now don't get overly worried yet, but . . . ".  It's just not something you want to hear.  So apparently having cysts can possibly indicate T18 aka Edward's disease.  It's a horrible disease that affects pretty much every organ in the baby's body and the baby is "lucky" to live from 1 week up to 6 months old (50% don't make it past the first week).  So once the cysts were spotted we were immediately ushered to the lab to have blood work done for a quad screen.  The doctor was not overly alarmed because our baby girl showed no other signs of having this disease (e.g. closed fists, thick neck).  

We received the results from the blood work about 2 weeks ago.  We found out that my chance of having a baby with T18 was 1 in 46,000, which is great!  People's whose results come back at 1 in 3,000 or less are high risk for T18, so we were ecstatic and relieved.  Our doctor wanted to do a follow-up exam today just to make sure she was still growing and developing at the proper rate, which was the case, and we found out that the cysts disappeared!!! =)  About 1 in 300 babies show cysts some time during the development process.  

Today our baby girl was extremely active again - opening/closing her hands, rubbing her face, kicking.  You can see ripples in some of her ultrasound pics (I'll try to post some more early next week)!  And that was the silver lining of all this drama ... we were able to have another sneak peak of our little bun in the oven!

I really wanted to share this story just to make people aware of T18 and to let those parents know who have a child with this disease that my thoughts and prayers are with you!