Today was our NT scan. This is also referred to as the first trimester screening. It is an ultrasound and blood test screening for Down Syndrome, trisomy 18, and trisomy 13. For more information:
Nuchal Scan
I have been feeling absolutely horrible lately. I had a few days where I felt pretty awesome, and then the pregnancy misery came back with a vengeance. The last couple of weeks have been very tough. Today was no exception. The appointment was at 1:30 in Omaha. We've never been up there before, so we allowed for way too much extra time to get up there. I felt too sick to eat anything except french fries in the car on the way up, so things didn't go super well.
The first part of the meeting was with a genetic counselor. She was great. She explained how the test worked and risk factors and such. She said our risk before they did any exam was very low. I told her I don't really trust stats anymore since we had a relatively low chance of conceiving identical twins. Cody talked to her about genetics and animal husbandry..... I can always count on him to work cattle reproduction into my appointments. She asked us a lot of questions about family genetic issues. Luckily it seems our biggest issue is extreme stubbornness.
Next up was the actual ultrasound. It was about 2:30 at this point, and I was not feeling much better. I made Cody feed me jalapeno potato chips out of a baggie I hid in my purse. I'm not sure why I thought his hands were cleaner than mine. He likes to fiddle with everything he can get his hands on at doctor's offices. Unfortunately, they had signs all over commanding no recording devices, so we didn't get video this time. The babies were mostly sleeping so it is not a huge deal. The ultrasound took about 30 minutes and the tech printed quite a few pictures for us. She showed us their little hands, arms, feet, and nasal bone. (The presence of a nasal bone is one of the things they look for in the Down's screening.) About 20 minutes into it I nearly passed out. This will be another one of those odd places Courtney has almost passed out. It is just slightly less weird than the time I nearly passed out when we took the rabbit to the vet. After nearly passing out, the tech seemed to hurry through the last part of the ultrasound. She did feel bad for me and assured me that twin pregnancy sucks. Sucks is really too nice of a word.
The last part of our fun with the ultrasound tech was a finger prick for the blood test portion of the screening. Anyone that knows me well has a good idea about how well this went. I warned her about the time I nearly bled to death and then passed out at the Health Department from a finger prick in college. She laughed off my warning and stabbed me in the finger anyway. I handled it mostly well for how little I like blood draws and how little food I had eaten. I drank some Cola and thought happy thoughts and managed to make it through mostly uneventfully. She put a cotton ball on my finger and a band aid. She told us to wait in the room for the doctor. He was going to look at the pictures and give us a final consultation before we left. Well, we learned that I am still an excellent finger bleeder. The tech stopped in to check on us about 10 minutes later and I had bled through the cotton ball and band aid. I was wise enough to stay seated, so we did not completely have a repeat of the Health Department thing. She was amazed by my ability to continue bleeding; she gave me another band aid and left us to wait for the doctor.
The doctor came in 10 minutes or so later. Cody was holding my arm in the air strangling my wrist in an attempt to stop my finger bleeding. I had bled through the second band aid at that point. The doctor was slightly amused, but spoke with us for less than 3 minutes. There is a very good chance that he will be my new doctor when I'm transferred to the high risk OBs, so I hope I don't have a note in my file that says: Passes out during routine ultrasounds, bleeds through multiple band aids, mostly crazy.
All in all it was a nice appointment. The babies are measuring right on track. I am now 14 weeks so I'm in the 2nd trimester by all measures. The ultrasound measurements they were looking for were within the normal ranges, and we saw each nasal bone. The blood test portion is a lot less helpful because of the twins, but they wouldn't let me decline it. They both measured at 13 weeks 6 days; that is good because there is a concern if they measure too far apart. The most negative information we got from the appointment is that we are confirmed
monochorionic/diamniotic twins. That means my doctor will be transferring us to the high risk OB practice. Also, the tech said that the membrane separating the twins is very thin. We will get final results in about a week. It is not a yes/no type of test, it just gives you a risk rating such as 1/1200 chance of baby having one of the issues.
I will upload some of the ultrasound pictures tomorrow.
