Overly Eventful Amnio Appointment

Before I alarm anyone with my blog posting title, let me just say off the bat that the amnio itself went fine, was almost completely painless, and was totally uneventful. I hadn't really been stressed out about the procedure in advance either --hadn't done any research about the procedure, which is very unusual for me. I was surprised that the needle was inserted so high, above the belly button. It really did not hurt much at all. I remember my CVS last pregnancy also being no big deal, but this needle was even less painful. The doctor withdrew 2 large syringes of fluid. I made sure to look away when the needle was inserted, but I was inadvertently looking in the wrong direction at the end and I saw the doctor remove the needle -- that sucker was really long.

Since I had the amnio done at the high risk practice that I see regularly, they also do an anatomy scan. The technician said she should be able to identify the sex of the baby and asked if we wanted to know -- of course we did. Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. She had a rough time getting a decent view because the umbilical cord was right between the little one's legs. She said normally it would move at some point during the scan, but there was no such luck in our case. She thought it was probably a boy, but could not be sure because the view was so obstructed. The doctor tried again when he scanned me later and had a similar problem. He said he was 98% sure he could guess the sex but could not be certain. There was a nurse in the room at the time that was encouraging us to wait for the amnio results so we could be certain. She left later and we asked the doctor what he thought the sex was. He agreed that we would be having another boy. When we got home, I asked T if he wanted to have a little brother and he sang out very loudly, "NO!" I asked if he wanted a little sister and got the same answer, so someone is going to be likely facing some disappointment. As for Y and I, we are just hoping for a healthy baby -- on that front, read on.

When the technician did the anatomy scan, I was surprised that she spent an inordinate amount of time looking at the heart. She told us the heart looked great, which we found out a few minutes later was not entirely true. After the technician does the preliminary scan, the doctor comes in and usually rechecks certain things. We we got to the heart, he showed us there was what looked to be a small gap in the wall of the heart where I take it there is not supposed to be one. He said that was a potential problem, although it was too early in the pregnancy to be able to fully confirm if there is a hole in our son's heart. Even if there is, it is unlikely to be anything serious and sometimes these holes close on their own. Nevertheless, he wanted me to go see a pediatric cardiologist and he arranged for me to have an appointment later that morning.

I had mentioned that I was feeling pressure on the cervix, which can be a symptom of an incompetent cervix. Since I had experienced this pressure during my prior pregnancy, I suspected the doctor would want to check cervix length, which I know requires a vaginal ultrasound. The technician asked me if I had had one before and it was hard not to laugh, since I have had so many that I have lost track. My cervix was locked up tight like Fort Knox and was over 6cm long, which is great -- nothing is coming out of there anytime soon.

By then, my head was spinning, but the good times were not over yet. I was told I needed a blood draw in preparation to get a Rhogam shot. Now, I probably should have anticipated the Rhogam problem a little better. I'm Rh negative, so I know already from my prior pregnancy that I will have Rhogam pushed on me at various occasions. I don't need it though, because my donor and I have the same blood type (O negative), so there is no risk I will develop antibodies. Unfortunately, I didn't have any paperwork to prove this -- when this had come up before, I would just decline the Rhogam and that would be it, but this nurse wanted proof of the donor's blood type. Well, there are some advantages to having your RE located next door to your OB, so I sent her down the hall to get the necessary paperwork. So, I was able to escape the Rhogam shot, but still needed to go through the blood draw because I was missing a blood test that my regular OB should have run and had apparently missed. Unfortunately, the blood draw required 2 attempts by 2 different nurses -- I hate it when that happens.

I had an 8:30am appointment for the amnio, but by then, all we had was a time for was a quick bite before running off to the pediatric cardiologist at 11am. I'm not really sure what the big rush was to get to the cardiologist right away because he said at 16 weeks the heart is so small that only major structural problems can be confirmed. The cardiologist said that in general our son's heart looked normal, but he could see why my doctor thought there might be hole in the heart wall. However, he we would need to wait a few weeks before he could be definitive one way or another. There was only one ultrasound monitor at the cardiologist's office so I couldn't really see anything, but Y said that the picture quality was much better at the high risk practice, so if they could not tell anything for certain, she doesn't see how the cardiologist would do any better. I need to go back to the cardiologist in 2 weeks when the heart will be more developed. Until then, we wait.