Nuchal Translucency Scan

First of all I just need to say that we announced our pregnancy on facebook yesterday after this scan and the amount of love, support, hugs, congrats, well wishes and prayers for our family is overwhelming, yes I have cried multiple times at the comments you all have sent, THANK YOU for sharing in our excitement! I am so happy I shared the blog address with all of you too, if this is your first post, look further and see what has been going on :). I have had several people come out of the wood work struggling with infertility or knowing someone that has and thanking me for sharing our story. This blog started out to keep our out of town family/friends updated on everything but there had been lots of innocent questions from them "why it took so long?" Most knew we wanted a family right away and I am so happy to share now what we went through if it even helps one person know they are not alone in the journey of infertility. Thanks for the kind words and messages guys! You all are so wonderful to us. Now moving on.....


Hey friends, today is education day on the ole blog. I am gonna teach you all a little sompin' sompin' about pregnancy and prenatal testing today that I learned more about yesterday.
For those of you who don't know what the heck a nuchal translucency is, buckle your seatbelts you are getting the quick and dirty version of the explanation. For those of you who do, just skip past this little part to the good stuff...
So when you find out you are pregnant early enough (and get prenatal care early enough) there is a screening test offered at 12 weeks that looks for chromosomal abnormalities in your baby. It is a simple 30 minute ultrasound that looks at different parts of the baby and can detect problems with the baby's development and anatomy that would indicate a problem with the chromosomal makeup of the little nugget. So of course no result would change anything we are doing with this pregnancy (sadly yes for some it does) but we wanted to know if our baby looked healthy and hell it's just one more excuse to see our little peanut and who doesn't love to do that. Anyshways.... They look for things like the amount of fluid at the back of the neck (hence the word nuchal) and see how thick it is. This comes across as a black space (fluid looks black on ultrasound and looks translucent). Now you get where the name came from...first goal accomplished. Second, you get to learn it's significance. The thicker the fluid at the back of the neck, the more concern there is for a chromosomal abnormality as this is a finding shown with babies who frequently have a trisomy (3 copies) of any chromosome, most commonly Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21), Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18.

I borrowed this from google images, The baby on the left has a thin amount of fluids at the back of the neck...normal, the baby on the right has a thicker amount and was diagnosed with Trisomy 18

Next the look for a nasal bone, babies should have a nasal bone that can be seen as a white mark on the face at 12 weeks, those that don't....you guessed it, at risk for chromosomal problems.

borrowed this one too, thanks google. You can bearly see it, but see the white mark they are pointing too?

 

Then they look at the heart and the belly and the arms and legs and make sure everything looks normal....if the baby stays still enough.....it did not.

 

BABY SMITH IS ORNERY!!!! just like momma (what?)

This child of ours did not sit still for 2 seconds, the poor ultrasound tech was trying desperately to get our kid to stop acting like it was having a house party in my stomach for a solid 30 minutes. She did get great pictures of his/her profile for us and of little hands. It amazes me that at 4 inches long this baby already looks so human. The heart rate was perfect at 159 and we got to watch baby do backflips and twists and turns and hide it's face with it's hands and kick off the wall of my uterus and jump and bounce. Truly the most fascinating thing I have ever seen. And super weird I felt nothing while it's having this kegger in my stomach except the hangover. Yes, I am still sick. Oh well.

 

The results were perfect, baby looks healthy (and apparently very happy). Nasal bone intact, nuchal fold very thin, heart looks healthy and has great blood flow, umbilical cord has 3 vessles (that is normal). Active, 2 hands, 2 feet, and a rough rough rough guess at the gender, which I am keeping mostly secret until we know for sure.

Baby Smith ^^^ SOO CUTE

 

I am dying to know btw and as soon as I find out, you all will too, so stay posted. I think we are going to do an elective 3D/4D ultrasound at 18 weeks (you have to wait until 20-23 at the Dr.'s office) and my parents and in-laws and sister have all be dying to go to an ultrasound so we are gonna kill two birds with one stone, I am not dragging my circus of a family into the Dr. for the sono at 20-23 weeks to make sure my kid is healthy, so I will drag them to this private boutique I found that does elective gender sonos in 3D and let them all scratch their itch with 30 minutes of baby viewing pleasure and find the gender out then, all together. This place also records the baby's heartbeat and puts it inside a build a bear for you to keep. Adorbs!

 

So now you know what a Nuchal Translucency is and got an update on Baby Smith. Score! I will post the 12 week pics and update as soon as I make the chalkboard for this week :)