July 15 - Ultrasound

Eventually, I'll get caught up with these blog posts. (At least, I keep telling myself that ...)

So we had the big ultrasound on July 15, when I was a touch over 19 weeks. We came to Rochester to have the high-level ultrasound done and also to meet with a genetic counselor.

I will say that it was a little weird going back to Mayo in Rochester as a patient. I mean, I work at Mayo, but I have my routine of taking the bus in, going to my office (which isn't in a patient care building), working on the computer and going to meetings, and then heading home again on the bus. When we drove into the Damon parking ramp, I noticed the license plates from varying states, from Florida to California. And as we looked for a good spot, I sized up how far away the door to the elevators was and noted that there wasn't ice on the ramp leading to it like there had been last time.

It wasn't until then that I realized the last time we had been in the ramp was for Garrett's appointments on Dec. 10, the day before he died. Ugh. And now we were here to hopefully get good news about the health of the new baby we were expecting. Kind of an odd mix of emotions.

It was also kind of odd having the genetic counselor, nurses and doctor give their condolences and apologize for having to ask about Garrett. In this context, I had no problem being matter-of-fact about what happened, though. We were there to get some assurances that this baby was healthy, and I understood that our history was important for them to know what to look for. It seemed like they expected us to have a difficult time with it, though, and it was strange having to explain that we were happy to be there for this baby and focusing on him or her right now. (Right now at these appointments, that is. Believe me, I still think about Garrett plenty.) I suppose it's better for them to err on the side of being more sympathetic, though, rather than risk being insensitive to a mom who might be having a tough time with the circumstances.

Anyway, the genetic counselor took our family history and asked a bunch of questions and told us what we had expected to hear -- that what happened with Garrett was a rare, fluke thing and there's no reason to be concerned about some hereditary condition affecting this baby.

The ultrasound also went well. Interestingly, they seemed to look at everything they looked at with Jonathan. I had started out in Rochester with Jonathan, and then switched to Wabasha around 18 weeks because I wanted to have a water birth and that's the only place in SE Minnesota that does those. He ended up being delivered via C-section, but I like my midwife enough that I wanted to keep going there with future pregnancies.

Now I can't help but wonder whether the ultrasound I had with Jonathan and this baby were standard for Rochester, in which case they probably would have discovered Garrett's condition early on if I had been seen there, or if the doctor I had with Jonathan felt compelled to order a high-level ultrasound for him and just didn't tell me. I know when I gave her my family history, I mentioned that my grandma had a stillborn daughter with spina bifida. The doctor thought that was far enough removed that it probably wouldn't be a risk for me, but still told me to take some extra folic acid to be on the safe side, so perhaps she would have wanted to be more thorough with the ultrasound as well. Who knows.

We told the ultrasound tech right off the bat that we wanted to know whether we were having a boy or girl. I was hoping she would tell us right away, but I suppose she wanted to get the critical shots out of the way first. We saw the baby yawn and wave a hand, watched red and blue color splotches flowing through the skull and breathed a sigh of relief in hearing it looked perfectly normal.

Finally at the end, she asked again, "So, you want to know what it is?" We nodded and she showed us that it's a boy! At least she says it's a boy. She did it so fast, and I couldn't see what was what with my own eyes, so I'll have to take her word for it. With Garrett, the ultrasound tech took a little more time and I could see the male anatomy clear as day. This time, the printout still looks like a mysterious assortment of shapes to me.

When I heard it was a boy, I grinned and thought, "Oh, that'll be nice that Jonathan can still have a younger brother to do 'boy things' with." But the visions that then fluttered through my head of Jonathan and his younger sibling building forts and climbing trees were bittersweet, because those daydreams originally involved Jonathan and Garrett.

After the ultrasound tech left, the doctor came in and looked at the baby's head again to see the blood flow. He explained how we would see a large mass if the baby had a vein of Galen malformation, as Garrett had. He also explained that the heart is under added stress even in utero with that condition (which I hadn't heard before in any of the research we had done), so there could also be fluid buildup around the heart and lungs, and he didn't see any of that with this little guy. From everything we had heard before, we really didn't think this baby would have any issues, but it was still good to get that reassurance.

Losing a baby takes a lot of the magic out of pregnancy, though. A woman on an infant loss support site I visit summed it up well in that we have "lost our pregnancy innocence." All the facts and reasons why things should work out well can't make us forget the reality that it's ultimately a gamble. Nothing is guaranteed. I try not to dwell on that notion, but it's always there to some degree -- posing challenges in trying to pick a name, talk to Jonathan about the new baby (will this one stick around?), or thinking about getting the house ready.

But I guess I feel a little more confident the more I feel the baby move. For the first few weeks, it would feel just like a gentle rolling every now and then. More recently, I've been getting full-blown kicks and punches. One was so forceful, it actually made me yelp! Sometimes this munchkin keeps me awake with all his dancing about, but I appreciate those reminders that he's healthy and active.