Amniocentesis

Well, its been a long and stressful week, but thankfully we are done. Let's go back to last Tuesday and start there.....
I had an appointment with my specialist, which we thought was going to be my last appointment. I told Jim that he did not need to come because it was just a routine ultrasound. Of course, the one time I go alone, something is wrong. Dr. Lenke discovered that Annabelle has a condition called Fetal Hydronephrosis. Basically, what this means is that her kidneys are enlarged and are retaining too much urine. It is a very common condition and will be fairly easy to treat once she is born. What made it so stressful for us is this conditions connection to Down Syndrome.
Around 18 weeks, my doctor did a blood test called the quad-serum marker. If you are currently pregnant and debating whether or not to have this test done, I would advise you not to! The quad screening assesses your risk for the 4 major genetic disorders.... down syndrome, trisomy 13, spinal bifida and trisomy 18. Our test came back high risk for down syndrome. We were told that our risk was 1 in 62. There are 6 things that they look for in an ultrasound called "soft markers" that would also indicate down syndrome. They sent us to the specialist and after multiple ultrasounds and a fetal heart echo, they found none of the markers. The specialist gave us the option for an amnio at 24 weeks, and we chose not to do it. The risk of an amnio at that time did not seem worth it for only a 1.6% chance of down syndrome.
Well..... fetal hydronephrosis is one of the soft markers they were originally looking for. Annabelle's diagnosis of FH increased our risk of down syndrome to 1 in 32. Even though there is only a 3.2% chance of down syndrome, we felt that it was time to do the amnio. The difference between doing it now and doing it 10 weeks ago is that she would survive if the amnio went wrong and the sack was ruptured.
Our amnio was this morning and everything went just fine. It was painful and made me very nauseous ((because I am TERRIFIED of needles)), but there were no complications. We also saw a fetal cardiologist for another heart echo. ((40% of all down syndrome babies have a heart defect, and often they can be found in a fetal echo.)) The cardiologist said that Belle's heart looks good and everything appears to be normal. The results of the amnio take 7-10 days, so we will let you know as soon as we know something. We believe in our hearts that she is just fine, but want to be prepared if she turns out to be special.
On a positive note, Belle is measuring a week ahead and weighs 5lbs 2oz. I can't believe how fast she is growing. Just a week ago she was 4lbs 11oz. We go back for another ultrasound next Tuesday, so it will be fun to see how much she has grown in a week!
Enough of that..........
Saturday I had another shower. Mackenzie was nice enough to throw me a shower for my close girlfriends! It was so great to see everyone and I had so much fun! I can't thank Kenz enough for putting it all together for me. I went to Target yesterday to blow some gift cards and got all of the last minute stuff that we still didn't have. The nursery is done, the clothes are clean and put away, the diaper bag is packed, the bag for the hospital is packed, the carseat is in the car..... now all we need is a baby! I can't even put in to words how excited I am! My patience ((which most people know I have VERY little of)) is growing even thinner than usual. Jim and I can't wait to meet our sweet baby girl!
Oh, and be sure to read the post previous to this. After 8 months of nagging... I finally got Jim to post on the blog! :)
Love you all and will post again soon!