My doctor called me on Monday afternoon to let me know my AFP came back abnormal and that she had an appointment set up for the next day at Winchester Hospital to have an ultrasound performed by a high risk obstetrician. That was all the information I was given and was a bit thrown off and curious as to how abnormal my AFP was. The ultrasound was performed by a technician, who took lots of pictures of the baby (none for us though -she was mainly focusing on the organs) for the doctor to look at. We saw the outline of the skull, the development of the brain, spine & ribs, little feet & little hands (she counted all 5 fingers:), the bladder, the kidneys- which she wasn't sure if she would spot, but she did find them, little tiny specks in the image. If the baby was looking right at us, we could see it's face which was kind of disturbing and definitely looks like an alien.
My only concern was that when she was looking at the heart, I did not see any chambers, it looked more like a mouth opening & closing, however when the doctor came in he was able to get a better angle and we did see all 4 chambers which was good because it is on the early side to see such heart development.
In the end, everything is OK at this point, however the baby is not old enough for them to make a complete assessment and I will be going back in 3 weeks for a second ultrasound. Right now the baby is 5 ounces which is a perfectly healthy weight for a 16 week fetus & his/her heartbeat was 144 which was also right in line.
The doctor did try to catch a glimpse if it was a girl or a boy but he didn't get a clear shot, however if I had to guess at this point, based on my lack of ultrasound skills it looked like a girl. It was exciting to think that he would have been able to determine the sex, but I dont mind waiting a few more weeks.
Technically I have an ultrasound at my OB's office on April 15th, and then the following Tuesday I have my next ultrasound at the hospital, so I will have 2 definite chances to get to determine the sex this month.
Also, because our pregnancy is now characterized as high-risk, and doing some research online, it seems I may possibly keep going to the high risk doctor at the hospital so they can keep monitoring the development of the baby's heart & organs as it grows. It seems I will not be "in the clear" until the baby is born. Based on the AFP, I was told our chances for DS are 1 in 18, or as I prefer to look at it, 5.5% - which sits much better with me. So at this point 94.5% chance for a healthy baby, however those numbers can change as we go for more ultrasounds. Technically for someone my age they should be less than 1 in 1000, so 1 in 18 does seem scary.
Thank God for health insurance, Blue Cross is going to love me in the end of this!
In good news - this morning though I definitely felt the baby move a few times, it was like little bubbles in the same spot about 4-5 times in a row.
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Oh the fun of high risk! That's what I was as well! The actual fun part was that I got to go for NSTs on a weekly basis and I had about 8 or 9 ultrasounds done during my pregnancy so we got a bunch of chances to look at Leah! You'll get to monitor your little one more closely!
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