Sorry that this update is kind of late.  We didn't get home from the appointment until almost 7 PM on Tuesday and I have been so busy at work that I haven't had time to write an update.  Thus, this might be rather short because I am again on a time crunch.  I have a huge presentation of my new product to our COO/CTO today and I am once again under the gun!

The exam, overall, went well even though we had a tough time getting there.  I thought the exam was at 3:45 PM, when in fact I realized on Tuesday that it was at 2:45 PM.  Ooops.  I called my husband (freaking out) to let him know that we would need to leave early.  Luckily, that wasn't a huge problem.  Then, on the drive there, we got stuck in a huge traffic jam because some jerk-off decided to drive his tractor-trailer in a tunnel with a low clearance and got stuck.  We finally got to the hospital and as soon as we checked in and sat down in the very crowded waiting room, the fire alarm went off.  They closed up parts of the hospital and things were pretty stagnant for 25 minutes.  Needless to say, it didn't matter that we were 10 minutes late.

After sitting in the waiting room for 50 minutes, anxious/nauseous/heart beating out of my chest, we finally got called in for the scan part of the exam.  The tech was really nice.  I told him how nervous I was and he immediately put me at ease when he showed me the wiggly baby on the screen with a happily beating heart.  I was able to breathe a little more after that.  It was so cool to see the little waving hands and the little feet.  It really did seem surreal.

The baby really wanted to be in either a downward or upward facing position so the tech was having a tough time getting measurements.  He would try to coax the baby to the side position with the ultrasound wand, but the baby would flip right back to one of the original positions.  Very stubborn, that is definitely my child in there.  Finally he was able to get the baby into a good position and get some measurements.  He told us the measurement was 1.6 mm after measuring 2 times and said the baby looked good and healthy.  He then left and sent in the radiologist for a final review.

The radiologist then came in with a resident and they started scanning again.  Of course, the baby went back to one of the more comfortable positions.  She told us that the baby was measuring 13.3 weeks (even though I was 12 weeks 4 days, by my dating ultrasound).  She got the baby to turn into a side view position with some more pushing with the wand, snapped some measurements, then asked us is we wanted a guess on the gender.  Ummmm, yes!  Unfortunately my husband refuses to let me say anything to anyone so I can't say what they said.  We need a few more weeks to make that part of things official.

After the scan we headed over to the doctor's office.  For some reason I was still really anxious while sitting in the waiting room. Of course the first thing they did when I got into the exam room was to take my blood pressure.  Again, it was high, 138/70.  I could tell that I was anxious and I told the tech again.  She said the doctor would review it.  Always something.

The doctor came in and looked over the test results and said that everything looked good.  He explained a little more about the 2 part NT exam that I had opted for (I wasn't really sure which one to pick, but he recommended that one at my first appointment, so I complied).  Basically, I had the ultrasound and got blood taken on Tuesday and I have to go back for more blood work on 10/16.  Then I find out the results at my appointment on 10/30.  More things for me to worry about and obsess over, yay.  We talked a little about my blood pressure and he mentioned that I may have developed "White Coat Syndrome" due to my history of miscarriage.  This is when blood pressure spikes when anxiety related to a doctor's visit occurs.  He said that he wasn't worried about it right now, but that he might send me home with a monitor if it continues to be high when I visit.  Ummm yeah I can tell you right now that it will continue to be high each time I visit because I am now conditioned to feel this way after 3 miscarriages.  I ALWAYS expect bad news at an appointment regarding pregnancy.  Awesome.

We left the appointment feeling pretty good about things and excited to call my grandma.  I then happened to glance at the report in the car and I noticed that the report said the NT thickness was 2.0.  I was kind of confused since the tech told us that it was 1.6.  How did the estimate change so much??  I know that anything under 2.6 is considered to be a "normal" screen, but of course seeing a 2 on that paper scared me and sent me into a G.oogle frenzy when I got home.  That G.oogle frenzy led to me to another piece of the puzzle that neither the doctor nor the radiologist mentioned...the presence or absence of a nasal bone.  Why can't I believe it when the high-risk OB who specializes in dealing with people who have abnormal scans on a regular basis, tells me that the scan was normal?  What the heck is wrong with me?  Why don't I trust doctors and think that I can come up with more accurate diagnoses via the Internet?  I always do this to myself.  It is like I am trying to convince myself that there is a problem now.  Another miscarriage casualty.  Does anyone else do this or does the cheese stand alone here?

To end this post that I thought would be short, but ended up not being so short, we did call me grandma on the way home.  She was beyond ecstatic, as we expected.  It was so nice telling her that she would probably become a great grandmother in a few months.  :)

If you are interested, click over to see some pics of our growing Button.  Doesn't really look like a button anymore!