Ultra-Screen

Today was my first trimester Ultra-Screen. The test is a prenatal screening which gives you your risk for Down Syndrome, trisomy 18 and other chromosomal abnormalities. The findings come from combining an ultrasound measurement of the fluid accumulation behind the neck of the fetus (nuchal translucency) with blood tests and your age. First a sonographer gave me an ultrasound where she measured the baby (2.67 inches CRL- right on track), took lots of pictures (which they gave us on disc), and told me everything looked good. I noticed in the video of my last ultrasound that it looked like blueberry had no arms, so I was relieved when she easily found them. In fact, I think the baby may have been waving at us in the first picture attached. Then she took specific measurements of the back of the neck and the doctor came in to repeat the job and verify her findings. I was told to arrive with a very full bladder and since baby decided it had enough photos taken and didn't want to cooperate, the doctor had to push on my stomach quite a bit to get the baby to move to a position that made him happy. I really wanted to remain relaxed and listen to what the doctor was saying (after all, this is important stuff) but all I could really think about was how bad I had to pee. When I was finally allowed to go to the bathroom I seriously couldn't sit up straight. But boy.... I think it was the best pee ever!

The doctor told me I had great results and gave me a report which reminds me very much of the citywide test score printouts I would get in reading and math in elementary school. The results were pretty similar too. I'm in the 97.5 percentile. I was a smart kid.





After the screening we met with a genetic counselor to talk about me being a carrier of Canavan disease. Basically, if Perry is also a carrier then the baby would have a 25% chance of having the disease which could be determined by amnio. A nurse took Perry's blood (right after she took the blood of a woman who was carrying around a puke bucket and did NOT look well) and we should have results in 3 weeks or so. Hopefully, since Perry is very un-Jewish we will be ok. She also went over our family histories and made us both very late for work. We won't have results for a few weeks.