The beginning of June we went in for our 20 week ultrasound which is the big one where you get to find out what the sex of the baby is and all that jazz. So needless to say we were very excited, our little excitement bubble burst when the doctor came in and told us that they had seen what they call Choroid Plexus Cysts on the baby's brain and that they they wanted us to come back in to have another ultrasound done in 4 weeks. He said that these cysts appear and most of the time they are nothing but they want to check on them in a month just to make sure. So of course this freaked us out, I mean we went in expecting that they would tell us our baby was perfectly healthy and everything looked great, but instead we got "your baby has cysts on his brain." We did what any concerned parent would do...well, ok we did what we do and that is to look things up on the internet since we didn't really understand what these cyst things were. What we found was interesting. It said that these cysts appear in 1 to 3 percent of all babies and that they are not harmful to the baby at all. The problem is really one of association, the appearance of these cysts have been associated with a severe genetic disease called Trisomy 18. And that is a SCARY thing...basically the baby will either be stillborn, or rarely will they make it to their first birthday. So with this information in hand we began our little pity party. It was a difficult thing for us to handle at the time. However, after lots of prayer we came to grips with the fact that God brought us here and He'll bring us through it. So we waited 4 longs weeks until the next ultrasound.
This ultrasound went better. They told us that the cysts had resolved themselves!!!! But...and yes there was a but...they saw that I had more amniotic fluid in there than they liked to see, which by the way happens in 1 out of 100 pregnancies. So of course they said they wanted to do another ultrasound in 2 weeks. During this next visit they would also be doing what's called a 1 hour glucose test to rule out gestational diabetes. So we go back in two weeks later and get the glucose test done and they do another ultrasound to check the fluid levels. They tell us that the fluid levels are still high and they also found whats called a double bubble in the baby's stomach. They want to send me to Maternal Fetal Medicine at the hospital to have them check out this double bubble situation. A double bubble is something that shows up on an ultrasound and can mean that the baby isn't swallowing like he should. When babies are in the womb they swallow amniotic fluid and process it and it comes out as pee, this process regulates the amount of fluid present in my uterus. If the baby isn't swallowing then it would be something that would require surgery at birth to fix the reason why he isn't swallowing. So we leave once again terrified of what is to come.
To make matters worse they called and said that the test results from the 1 hour glucose test came back elevated and that they wanted me to go to the hospital to have a 3 hour glucose test done. So we have to go to a specialist to see if the baby has a swallowing problem which would explain the large amount of fluid in my uterus and I have to go be tested to see if I have gestational diabetes. I happened to have both appointments on the same day. First up was the glucose test which took 3 1/2 hours and 4 blood draws. Then we went to the specialist who did another ultrasound to check on the baby and fluid levels. Now this time we received good news!!! He didn't see a double bubble and in fact said that the baby looks great and perfectly healthy. He did say that our little munchkin was pretty big, like in the 90th percentile big. He also said that I did still have a higher amount of amniotic fluid in there but he wasn't majorly concerned. In fact he said that this may just be the way we make babies and that there was nothing wrong with it. Only that he would want my OBGYN to have me come in every 2 weeks for ultrasounds to check on the fluid levels and every 4 weeks to check on the babies growth. He also called to get the results of my 3 hour glucose test, which were negative, no gestational diabetes for me!
Another 2 weeks later and we go in for another ultrasound and GREAT news is to be had. They tell us that the fluid levels have dropped!!! woohoo. We were very excited to get that news. At this appointment I asked why they were concerned about the fluid levels and they said that they think what causes labor is a capacity issue. And when there is too much fluid in my uterus they like to monitor it so that it doesn't become too much and send me into premature labor. But since my levels were going down their level of concern was diminishing. They did schedule another ultrasound for 2 weeks later to check on the levels to see if they continue to drop and if they do then I would only need to have one more ultrasound towards the end to see how big the baby is. So this is where we are today... I go in on Friday to have the ultrasound to see if the levels have dropped again.
It has been an emotional roller coaster ride like no other. We are very happy that things have all turned out to be fine but it's still been one crazy ride. I just wanted to fill everyone in on what has been going on. I promise to keep updating as we find out more. I want to use this blog mostly to show people the baby and how he is growing once he is born, but this is part of his story too and I wanted to share it with you all. With all of these ultrasounds we've had done we have been able to see some pretty cool pictures of the baby so here are some.
This is a picture of his hand
His mouth and nose, looking at them straight on
His ear
