Say hi, baby!

We had our appointment for the nuchal translucency scan this morning…and well into the afternoon. When we got there, Nutella spent the first 20 minutes filling out forms. Then we waited an hour to be seen by a genetic counselor. The counselor was very nice and personable…she sat with the both of us for about 15 minutes discussing the nuchal scan, Nutella and the donor’s backgrounds, and information about chromosomal abnormalities, which we are not at very high risk for. At age 32, the risk of having a baby with Downs is 1 in 637. By the end of our scan, we were told it was reduced to 1 in 900 because of how things measured. She did say that also having the blood test would greatly increase the probability of catching anything, but we decided that unless the nuchal scan results were borderline, we would skip it. It’s only a finger prick, but we still thought it would be unnecessary if everything looked ok. She was actually surprised we were having any testing done at all, considering Nutella’s age and background. We thought this scan was recommended for most pregnant women though, being so non-invasive.

So after the chat, we again waited another half hour, at which point Nutella was getting hungry and as we know, it is never a good idea to deprive pregnant women of food. Finally, an ultrasound tech took us into the room for the ultrasound…our first abdominal one. Cupcake is beautiful. S/he was moving around a lot at first…showing us both arms, both legs, opening and closing a fist, and even opening and closing his/her mouth. We were delighted. The nuchal fold measured 2.1mm (they say under 3.0mm is good). The heartbeat was measuring 153bpm. The crown-rump length was 7.1cm. We even measured ahead by 2 days (13 weeks 3 days).

A doctor came into the room shortly after to have a look. He was a very pleasant guy and made some chit chat before doing the ultrasound. He was also pleased with what he saw, and offered us a look using the new 4D technology. We didn’t expect that at all and were very excited. Our baby looks like a baby using that technology, and a cute little alien without it.

Without any further ado, let us present Cupcake:

Hi, everyone!

And the 4D scan picture