My Ultrasound

I had my detailed ultrasound last Friday, on August 1, after trying for a few weeks to bump it up in the schedule. My original appointment was for August 7, but I'd be pushing 23 weeks. I managed to get it rescheduled, so now I was just approaching 22 weeks. Not much difference, but I wanted to see how the baby was doing.

My appointment was at 8:30 in the morning. Good, only because it's out of the way, and I have the rest of the day to do other things (like get a massage!), but bad, because that meant my day had to start by 6am so that I can get 2 big glasses of water in me by 6:30 (you need a full bladder for a proper ultrasound, and you can't go to the bathroom after downing the water!). Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep past 4:45 am, so my day started way earlier than I expected.

The family and I got to our appointment early. I went in first, which the hubby and the kid were in the waiting room. I must have been in there for 20 minutes or so until it was ok for them to come in and view the baby.

She shows us the obvious traits: head, arms, nose, neck. Very quick, too quick, if you ask me. Then I was finally asked to completely empty my bladder in the washroom while she went off doing what she needed to do. It took her FOREVER to report back to us in the room. I was getting anxious. Did she find something abnormal? Is she having further consultations with the doctors? Is she trying to figure out how to break something to us?

So, FINALLY, so comes back into the room after 10 minutes of waiting for her. She starts to close the door behind her while she asks, Did you have your Triple Screen? Ohmygod, why is she asking?!? Uh, yeah, it came back negative, I reply. Hold on, she says flustered, and leaves the room abruptly, closing the door behind her.

Ohmygod!

What? my husband asks. I explain to him that she wouldn't have rushed out of the room like that if she seemed alarmed at me having a negative Triple Screen. That means she found something abnormal that the Triple Screen test didn't pick up (for all those who don't know, the Triple Screen, aka Quad Screen, aka Maternal Serum Screen, is a blood test that screens for several select abnormalities like Trisomy 21, 18,13, spina bifida, Turners. It's not fool-proof, with many false positives, but also some false negatives). Calm down, there must be a rational explanation.

So, again, she FINALLY breezes back in and exclaims, ok, everything's fine! Uh, really? I thought. What was that earlier then? Then she asks, did your son have big feet? Uh, I came here for my previous ultrasound, and they never said anything, so I don't think so. Oh, ok...she says that she had taken a long time because I was trying to get measurements of the baby's feet. They are large....but not that they're going to be GIANT or anything (at this point, she chuckles) but everything else is fine.

Big feet. Ok, I'm trying to quickly recall from my experience at work, is big feet a marker for anything abnormal? I asked to confirm that other than big feet, there's nothing else wrong. She said everything else was fine.

She then quickly proceeded to hand out two profile pictures of the baby and then one on just the foot, sole facting the camera. It is rather big, but there's no other body part in the picture to relate it to.

Hmm. I left the clinic feeling neither happy or sad. Confused I think is more accurate.

Well, I can't be too worried right now. I'll have my next prenatal appointment in 3 weeks.