Details on the Level Two Ultrasound

For those who want the details, here they are...for those who want the broad overview, just know that the baby appears to have functioning organs, and we are very thankful.

This week has been tough around here. Jeff left for a business trip early Monday morning, and Grace's tummy bug came back right after that with a vengeance. Ugh. Tuesday mid-morning I came down with a terrible cold. Colds seem to be the worst for me when I'm expecting, and it was a bad one. Wednesday, Grace still had the bug and I still felt terrible. My mom came over for a couple of hours Tuesday night and an hour on Wednesday night, and I'm so thankful that she's close by and that she could do that for me. Jeff got home to a pathetic wife and disastrous house late Wednesday night. Ugh.

This morning, Jeff stayed home with Grace while I went to the ultrasound. Ideally, he would have been with me, but I really couldn't share Grace's icky germs with my friend who had graciously agreed to help with her. Thankfully, I am feeling decent today.

Thanks to everyone's prayers, the morning went smoothly and I felt very peaceful about everything. At a level two ultrasound, the sonographer is actually allowed to talk and answer basic questions, which was really nice. She told me that the stomach and kidneys looked good and active, and she thought the baby was around 5 lbs., 10 oz., which she said is very big for right now. The baby is head-down. I do still have a lot of amniotic fluid, (AFI 30.2) which they were not happy about, but it doesn't seem to be caused by malfunctioning organs, so we are very thankful. The memorable quote from the sonographer:

Her: Did your other babies have big heads?
Me: Yes.
Her: So does this one.

Nice. She even went back to double-check those head measurements.

After the ultrasound (and she printed out about a zillion pictures for the doctor to look at!) I had a non-stress test. Such a weird name, but they said that they wanted to make sure that the baby is tolerating its large size. I'm not sure why, but that just seemed funny to me! I saw the gal write "History of macrosomia" on the paper.

After the NST, the perinatologist came in to tell me what he thought, and I got to ask him questions. He thinks out 12/25 due date is still valid. He doesn't have concerns about any of the baby's organs at this point, and although he seemed amused that I asked, he did tell me which ones they got a good look at. He tells me that I need to go to my doctor twice a week from now on for non-stress tests (NST) and once a week to get the amniotic fluid level checked (AFI.) He wants me to come back to his office in four weeks for another ultrasound. If the baby reaches the 90th percentile in size, he will want me to repeat my glucose tolerance test to check again for gestational diabetes. He says that the concern is that babies who are exposed to gestational diabetes have a higher risk of getting stuck during delivery. (And in my opinion, getting to the 90th percentile is not an "if" but a "when.") If gestational diabetes is an issue, he says he'll want to look at an earlier delivery date.

Tomorrow, I meet with my midwife to tell her all this stuff. The report from the perinatologist won't have reached her yet, but I'm thankful that she wanted to hear the news from me sooner rather than later. I'm interested in what she has to say about all of it. If she agrees that I need to come in twice a week, my local friends are likely to hear from me, asking for help with Grace while I have the non-stress tests.

So that's it. Not necessary for everyone to read, but thanks for your concern, everyone, and for reading a blog post that saved me a lot of emailing! We're thankful for this baby and will have lots of stories to tell him/her about what the doctors thought before he/she was born!