12 Week Appointment

There is never a dull moment at the doctor's office visit when I am the patient. Today John and I had our 12 week appointment. This was our first official visit back to Dr. Helmken's office since we have been in the care of Dr. Odom. I say first official because I went there on Friday just for a reassurement visit. At that time they performed an ultrasound and I had mentioned to the technician about the fluid (Nuchal Translucency) and she told me that a 3.5mm fold would show up like a red flag on her ultrasound screen. She said that she does not perform the tests, but if it was something that big it would show up. The heartbeat that day was 174.

Back to today's visit. We started with all the basic things at a check-up; including being weighed, something I never had to do at Dr. Odom's office, but everything looked great. We actually saw a nurse practitioner - Judy. Next we went into the room where they brought out the doppler. We listened and listened and listened - it felt like an hour, but really it did take a long time to find the heartbeat - which is due to my inverted (tilted) uterus. The heart rate was 166bpm. Next we started going over all of the medicines and the exam and all of that; then she mentioned if we had given thought to the genetic screenings. I took a deep breath and told her everything that had been going on the past 2 weeks. I handed her the letter we were sent from the genetics counselor and I told her everything that was spoken and how we didn't know what we were going to do and all of that stuff.

I am assuming she is a fan of the amniocentesis, but she did not try to sway me in either direction. After continuing the conversation I finally told her how I just didn't see any reason why I should have the amniocentesis. That I didn't feel like anything was going to be wrong and that according to the ultrasound on Friday everything looked like it was fine. That is when her eyes lit up. I went on to tell her what Noelle had said. She asked if we wanted to have the screening done (the scan by way of ultrasound and by taking blood from me) and we said yes. She made some phone calls (in which one I thought she was angry with Noelle, but she assured me she was not) and then we were taken to the ultrasound room.

When Cindi was taking the measurements I asked what it was measuring at - it was 1.77mm!! Isn't that just great! This fully confirms the power of prayer (that we still need!!)!! We still have to wait for the blood results - which still do not give a yes or no answer, but to me it gives me either (1)-more validation that I will not have/need the amnio or (2)-that something could be wrong. It gives you results like you are 1 out of 50 to have a chromosomal abnormality or 1 in 10,000. Either way it will help in are future decisions on the types of the procedures we will take on. At this point in the day is when I was called a nutcase, but for good reason. The whole conversation was in good humor and John quite enjoyed having someone on his side :) I will say that by being a nutcase I get things done :) Our next appointment will be 1/11 - so an update will come then!!